Let’s talk about the Hamburger Menu. No, not the kind of hamburgers you order and eat. In fact, the hamburger menu is a navigation element you can use for your website.
What is the Hamburger Menu?
The great hamburger menu is very popular, whether you’ve realized it or not. The design is straightforward- It’s comprised of three horizontal lines resembling, a hamburger. This navigation element is the button on websites and apps that open up a side menu. This menu portrays to users that there is more to explore on the website.
Is this Icon right for your website?
When developing your website, planning, researching and designing take a big role in perfecting your website. So, the question lies, is this icon right for my website? Here are some of the pros and cons of the icon.
Pros
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The Menu is Recognizable
Everyone knows the hamburger menu. When you appear on a new website and see the three lines, you know to click on it to explore more. It’s a famous icon that, truly will never get old.
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It’s Clean
Nothing is more appealing to the eye than a nice, clean, and organized website. You don’t want to overwhelm users with too much information, using the hamburger menu gives users the chance to click on the information they want, in a clean way.
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Secondary Access
If you have more information that doesn’t need to be seen for everyone’s eyes, then the menu creates secondary access for users. It helps to focus primarily on one page but can navigate you to another. This is what makes the menu so useful.
Cons
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They may be inefficient
A good designer knows that making users go through multiple steps, is just a no. Sadly, that’s what the hamburger menu does. When users are looking for something right away, they don’t want to go to the menu to find it, they want it on the first page. Sometimes, users hate having to search for what they want.
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They have Low Engagement
The click rates on the icon are low. Sometimes they can be hard to reach in the corner of a phone or tablet. For something so simple, there is a high cognitive load for users. Using something else can help reduce that for users.
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They can make the page unimportant
Whatever is in the menu ultimately means it’s unimportant, because it’s not on the home page, right? Well, that’s wrong. Many important items are on the hamburger menu, but users assume they aren’t.
We’ve discussed the pros and cons of the infamous hamburger menu. What do you think is right for your website? You won’t know unless you try!
