Why you should avoid hamburger menus, and finding their alternatives
For such a seemingly innocent UI element, those three line icons you see in the corner of many responsive websites and apps have generated a lot of controversy.
Countless articles backed by UX metrics have shown the hamburger menu simply hurts user engagement due to its lack of discoverability and efficiency. Spotify ditched the hamburger in May 2016 and reported a 30% increase in navigation clicks. Facebook engagement went up after also dropping the hamburger. Is it time for your site to say farewell to the hamburger too?
Finding a solution
In certain situations the hamburger is an appropriate and effective choice but, if you decide the hamburger menu isn’t right for you, what is the alternative?
If your site has 4 or fewer top-level navigation links, display them all as visible links. If your site has more, prioritise the first 3 links and display the rest under “More” or try a horizontal-scrolling bar. It’s simple, but shown to be very effective.
Want more? Here’s more useful alternatives to the hamburger menu.
