Case Study : Hamburger Menu

What is your view of using Hamburger menu in iOS?
The hamburger icon has become a classic in its own right and a staple of both web & app design and seems like its here to stay. Anyone who uses any type of digital platform are aware of this 3 black lines.
The icon was designed long ago by Norm Coz in 1980’s to look like a container to house contextual menu choices. It resurfaced somewhere around the beginning of 2012, where the trend started where we began to see it all over the place. Apple & Facebook were the ones to make it famous which brought it to the limelight of everyone.
It has been intensely used in the current digital trend, where the icon and its functionality has brought in a lot of friction between the user and the product navigation, as it hurts UX due to its low discoverability, features seem to be hidden and app efficiency is reduced. The little 3 line icon is the cause for all or most of the problems in some digital app cases. Its an action which slides open to show you things which users might not need or are lazy to use or check. Multiple actions has to be performed to switch between screens which creates a lot of navigation friction. Many A/B tests, UX theories, evaluation of famous app like Facebook all point towards the same thesis. The hamburger icon is fad when it comes to user engagement, which we can probably replace with Tab bar or any other navigation technique depending on the app content & context.

Everyone have had concerns with the hamburger icon but still nobody has been able to come up with a convincing solution.
What can we use instead: The side bar menu welcomes and harbours a bad IA, because you can keep adding more features into the stack without any direct impact.
The solution to this is to review your product Information Architecture.
Good navigation should do 3 things:
- It should allow the user to navigate with ease
- User should be able to find things in a seamless manner
- It should boost the products capability to bring user engagement
Facebook might’ve opted for the hamburger icon to showcase its feed contents and give users a rich immersive, content centric way. But they soon realised the drop in user metrics and opted for tab bar with more options which gave way for and emphasised on content consumption, exploration, content creation, notification, user profiles etc., This makes the navigation quicker around the app & tells the user what they should do.

I do have my concerns, thoughts and reasons behind the hamburger icon. In few scenarios it makes sense but I’ve never come across a product or platform where I’m completely convinced with the use of it.
Based on A/B tests and user research, quick instant navigation is preferred more than using a feature which causes or introduces navigation friction since you have top open the navigation icon to access different sections. Elements like Tab bar lets the user understand the context and helps you navigate directly to that section.
There might be some rare scenarios where this navigation pattern actually makes sense or work, but the general rule is to avoid it completely.
For example, iOS Gmail app is an example where the application of this pattern makes sense in a way. It allows navigation between channels and channel members. This is acceptable because the main screen aims at showcasing the content upfront to the user without any hierarchical stack.
Let me know what you think of my thoughts regarding the hamburger menu.
Thanks for reading.
