Meaning of Breaking the Burger
Ultimately, I am trying to “sell” the idea of changing the functionality of the hamburger menu. The relationship between the design community and the hamburger menu is loose. This menu made it easier to design and develop for a modular concept, but that was the solution that came out towards the late 2000s. By today, there should be more exploration of the navigation concept. With that said, there is exploration in the field, but it is more in the design of the hidden menu itself.
If this way of navigation has been being used for over 10 years and the major changes that happen are the aesthetics of it. These major changes are how the hamburger menu looks and how it opens.
Take these two websites VKP and Africa Travel Source. On both clicks of the menus, the user is presented with a menu opening animation, which leads to a navigation menu. However, both times I opened these menus, I got annoyed.
Both menus on these sites, and many others, feel like a table of contents. Yes, you can argue that a navigation menu is like a table of contents because it shows an overview of the site and a way to get to the information. Nevertheless, a website should not have a whole section dedicated to navigating you! You have places to be and people to meet. You should be able to get to your information in a timely and enjoyable way without having to leave the information to see where to go.
This idea of Breaking the Burger is not about forgetting the hamburger menu and hidden menus, but about breaking the concept that these two ideas should go together and exploring other solutions.
