Hamburger Menu Design Best Practices for Superior UX/UI

No, I’m not talking about going to your favorite restaurant and destroying their menus. Hamburger menus – icons comprising three little lines at the top right of so many apps and digital products – are wildly popular and used to hide a software application product’s navigation. UI Designers will be more swayed to love hamburger menu designs, whereas UX Designers may be more prone to hate them.

These icons are not just design industry controversy. While trendy, they can have real consequences for your application product’s user experience (UX) if not applied carefully.

The hamburger menu is a ubiquitous icon in digital design, represented by three stacked horizontal lines. It acts as a button that, when clicked or tapped, reveals a hidden navigation menu or additional options. This icon's simple, minimalist design resembles a hamburger, hence the name.

The hamburger menu first appeared in the early 1980s, created by Norm Cox for the Xerox Star personal workstation. However, it gained widespread popularity with the rise of mobile devices and responsive web design in the 2010s. The need for compact, space-efficient navigation led designers to adopt this icon as a standard solution for organizing content on smaller screens.

Hiding all of your product’s navigation behind one burger icon is convenient and makes for a clean user interface. It’s especially enticing for designers working on mobile products, or web apps that need a streamlined user interface design.

Unfortunately, it can also be confusing. Hamburger menu icons usually have no accompanying text—they were originally invented for users who already instinctively know what’s behind them. This works for small menus or simple applications / websites. Facebook was the first to successfully adopt the hamburger menu because the app’s purpose – social networking – is common knowledge and user research demonstrates that most users are already familiar with the options hidden behind the menu.

But, if a website or application design had 20 or more sections / actions hiding behind this icon, it  could do more harm than good for the customer experience.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed this user experience design flaw to be epidemic, especially at ad agencies.  They tend to prioritize user interface designs that are more visually polished and flashy over usable and relevant.

Take, for example, this agency website  – it’s beautiful and includes a hamburger menu that hides four navigation options. Does this add or detract from the usability of the user interface design? It’s possible that the agency didn’t thoroughly think about supporting its user groups’ actions.

One user group may consist of potential clients who need to see portfolio work in order to make a judgement about working with that agency while another group, possibly job seekers, are looking for quick information about career openings. The flashy homepage is visually enticing and maybe it was decided that the hamburger would not detract from that as much as a top navigation bar, but this ultimately hurts the user experience.

It’s easy to invision usability testing that would demonstrate that hiding too many options in the hamburger menu leads to increased time spent trying to make a decision on where to go on the website or abandon the website altogether out of frustration.

Before your UX design team decides to slap a burger menu on that app or website design, have them think about how this will actually help the experience. What’s popular isn’t always right.

While the hamburger menu is designed to save space, it can unintentionally disrupt user flow. When crucial navigation options are hidden behind the hamburger icon, users must take additional steps to access them. This can lead to frustration, especially if the product navigation items are frequently used.

The hidden nature of these menus can increase cognitive load, as users need to remember to click the icon and then scan through the revealed menu options. This added complexity can make the interface feel less intuitive and more cumbersome, ultimately detracting from the overall user experience.

Hamburger menus pose significant challenges for users with disabilities. For individuals with motor impairments, the precision required to tap the small icon can be difficult. Similarly, users relying on screen readers may find it harder to navigate through hidden menus, as the additional steps required to access content can be confusing and time-consuming.

This can lead to a less inclusive experience, where users with disabilities are not able to interact with the website or app as effectively as their able-bodied counterparts.

Several studies have shown that the use of hamburger menus can negatively impact key engagement metrics. For instance, research by the Nielsen Norman Group indicates that hiding navigation items can decrease discoverability and increase task completion time. This can lead to higher bounce rates, as users may leave the site out of frustration or inability to find what they are looking for quickly.

Additionally, session durations can be shorter on websites that rely heavily on hamburger menus, as users spend more time navigating and less time engaging with the content. By prioritizing convenience for designers over ease of use for visitors, hamburger menus can inadvertently reduce overall user engagement and satisfaction.

A more strategic approach to producing a great customer experience would be to ask:

Large applications that are also getting a navigation redesign – that is, completely redoing the menu and its features – would probably benefit from a menu exposing more options than hiding them. Even user interfaces with more constrained screen space like mobile apps can still have a navigation menu at the top or bottom of the app.  The term “hamburger menu” may amuse, but be careful not to abuse!

The hamburger menu is particularly effective in scenarios where screen space is at a premium, such as on mobile devices or minimalist web designs. It is beneficial when there are numerous navigation items that cannot be displayed simultaneously without cluttering the interface. For single-page applications or websites with secondary content that users do not need constant access to, the hamburger menu can help maintain a clean and focused layout while still providing necessary functionality.

While the hamburger menu has its place, several alternatives can offer better usability:

For sites with a few main sections, visible tabs can provide immediate access without hiding options. This method works well for desktop and tablet interfaces where space permits.

A sticky navbar that remains at the top of the screen as users scroll ensures that navigation items are always accessible, reducing the need for hidden menus.

Placing secondary navigation items in the footer can be an effective way to keep the main navigation clean while still providing easy access to additional links.

To improve usability, label the hamburger icon with the word "Menu" or a similar term. This makes it immediately clear to users what the icon represents, especially for those less familiar with the symbol.

Keep the most frequently used navigation items visible outside of the hamburger menu. This ensures that users can quickly access the most important sections without additional clicks.

Enhance the interaction by using animations and visual feedback. For instance, a smooth slide-out menu can make the transition more intuitive, and highlighting the menu button when it’s active can provide clear feedback to the user.

Good practices include clear labeling, minimal nesting of menu items, and ensuring the menu is easily accessible. Bad practices involve hiding essential navigation items, using ambiguous icons, or over-reliance on the hamburger menu for primary navigation.

The hamburger menu can pose accessibility challenges for users with disabilities, such as motor impairments or vision impairments. It requires precise interactions and may not be immediately apparent to users relying on assistive technologies like screen readers.

Key metrics include bounce rates (indicating how many users leave the site after accessing the menu), session durations (showing how engaged users are after accessing the menu), and heatmaps or click-through rates on the menu icon itself.

The placement of a hamburger menu can significantly impact user interaction. Placing it in a predictable location, such as the top left or right corner, enhances usability by ensuring consistency across different websites and applications. Avoiding placement in less intuitive areas can improve user experience and reduce confusion.

Innovative uses include combining the hamburger menu with other design elements, such as using it as a floating button that expands into a menu when clicked, or integrating it into a swipe gesture for seamless navigation on touch-enabled devices. These approaches maintain functionality while enhancing user engagement and satisfaction.

While there is a growing awareness of their drawbacks, hamburger menus are still prevalent in many designs, especially for mobile interfaces. However, there is a trend towards using alternative navigation patterns that prioritize visibility and accessibility.