WHY THE HAMBURGER MENU IS NOT GOOD FOR UX

Hamburger menu or hamburger icon is a menu that consists of three parallel horizontal lines. Menu, plain-ol hamburger, cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger, grilled cheese, turkey burger, The Pittsburgher, portabella, sausage/egg N’ cheese, and the club are not the names of your favorite burgers but a new way of showing people on your website where settings are and where to navigate. The placement of these buttons is typically on a top corner of the graphic user interface.

Unlike other menus, a hamburger button has been becoming a common symbol on many devices. These buttons are gaining popularity across the internet. The use of hamburger on websites has been started with ‘PATH,’ gained popularity by Facebook, and now you can see these three horizontal lines stacked on top of one another on every other website.

The question can be raised that is using the hamburger icon right on your website? The current case study shows that website with hamburger menu and without it can impact differently on site ranking. Hamburger and other hidden navigation menus adversely affect task times and even led to worse discoverability on devices.

THE PROBLEMS:

There are many disadvantages of using hamburger icon on your website, including:

• The content is hidden under the icon which makes users confused to look for information
• It also makes the task difficult to do for users
• The placement of hamburger on the website can also lead to poor usability

STILL, IT MAY HAVE A FEW BENEFITS

• It is a technique aimed at improving the functionality of app and site.
• It is used to save as much screen as possible.
• It is used to achieve neat and appealing layouts.

MOREOVER: CASE STUDY CONDUCTED BY NNG GROUP

Why isn’t hamburger menu right for user experience? The Nielsen Norman Group has addressed the same question.

The group used unmoderated remote user testing for its study. It involved 179 participants, recorded their screen and voice at home. Initially, the group found 20% drop in viewership on websites having hamburger menu. It is also seen that users on the site with hamburger menu were slower when compared to combo or visible navigation. The group concluded that this hamburger is nothing but consistently disappointing.

CONCLUSION

I’ve mentioned above that the trend of using hamburger buttons on your website is not new. But the technique can harm your users more than your thinking.

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