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Hamburger Menu: Revolutionizing Website Navigation with a Simple Icon

The hamburger menu has revolutionized user experience with its ease and accessibility, providing quick access to helpful choices while keeping the UI uncluttered.
Hamburger Menu: Revolutionizing Website Navigation with a Simple Icon

What is

Hamburger Menu

A Hamburger menu is a term used in the UI world to describe a navigation system for websites and applications which can be accessed as an icon - often three lines stacked on top of each other, which resembles a hamburger. The icon, once clicked upon, opens up and displays a variety of available options related to navigating around the website or application. It's also referred to as "slide-out menus" or sidebars. This simple navigation method has revolutionized user experience thanks to the ease and accessibility it offers users when navigating through content.

When looking at hamburgers we think first of beef patties filling buns but with hamburger menus their ingredients are much more tasty; providing users with quick access to helpful choices like language selection, user profiles and settings that enable them to sail swiftly wherever they need in an app or website. You could say this savory system enables users “to grill” away any frustrations encountered when searching around a web page - sizzle included!

This clever design has had amazing success over recent years because rather than displaying all the options provided by a website/app (like search bars, contact info etc) on its face some have opted for programs that don't compete visually setting them apart creating terrific tiles each communicating their own purpose all enhanced by this fantastic contraption known as the hamburger menu keeping things clear and concise at all times appealing not only to clutter busters but also giving aesthetically conscious designers tons of breathing room for wowing customers too!

The implementation process is super straight forward: create an icon resembling three horizontal lines on your site or application then place tree dots inside it ready for clicking upon if desired. This scrumptious sensation looks appetizing is made even more digestible by being easily recognizable from platform to platform due to its usage across multiple devices eliminating any confusion about where our visitors need go next ensuring that grub gets put into gobble mode quickly whilst giving them a solution similar galaxies would be jealous off showing everyone just how far our stellar universe extends...

Examples of  

Hamburger Menu

  1. Gmail – The classic hamburger menu in the upper left corner provides account navigation.
  2. Wordpress - Their dashboard uses an 'upper level' Hamburger menu for overall navigation within the website.
  3. YouTube - The three-line menu at the top-left corner provides access to additional settings and search functions.
  4. Spotify - Slides out from the top left corner, it houses all nav items like browse, select preferences and much more!
  5. Twitter –A hidden main menu that slides out from the bottom section of their app to show important user services and resources
  6. Instagram - Uses a simple hamburger icon which links to Offers, podcasts, notifications and more in their “sidekick” of options for users to reach information quickly.
  7. Microsoft Word - Applies a standard hamburger style sidebar layout showing options such as Word Resume, customize ribbon etc.
  8. Adobe Photoshop CC– Accessed via its large ham sandwich icon located on one side of the screen it allows you access many several features/tools with ease.
  9. WhatsApp– Unveils available functions such as Status update and tasks like creating group chats or deleting messages when you tap on it's wonderfully tasty hambuger icon.
  10. Apple Music - Has an unmissable hamburger placed elegantly besides its center logo offering music filters like genres or singers simply by clicking away with your mouse!

Benefits of  

Hamburger Menu

  1. Streamline navigation: The hamburger menu is great for when you want to keep your Ui uncluttered. It allows users to switch quickly and easily between various pages.
  2. Provide context: Placing the hamburger in the upper left corner of a page helps provide context about what content or links are available elsewhere in the app or website, without needing to break the overall design flow.
  3. Accessibility support: Utilizing simple icons like the hamburger menu can make it easier for people with cognitive disabilities and low vision to understand and use more complex web designs more smoothly.

Sweet facts & stats

  1. Around 50% of all websites use the hamburger menu for their menus.
  2. Nearly 20% mobile application designs have employed a hamburguer menu in their interface.
  3. An estimated 25-45ms increase in time to get to content is associated with using the hamburguer icon instead of traditional navigation on desktop sites and native apps.
  4. The base view width for which the hamburger is recommended as a navigation tool is 740 pixels or less according to Apple's iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Android’s Material Design Documentation, though the appearance can vary (from 3 lines to 4 dots).
  5. A 2017 eye-tracking study showed that users spend 10 times more viewing a page when presented with an easily understandiable horizontal navigation bar versus one hidden behind a burger button (7 minutes before completion compared to 42 seconds).
  6. For some astronomy aficionados, when they look up into the night sky, they see two stars next to each other like a tasty ham sandwich - thus making it also possible that “Hamburger Menu” might be named after this particular celestial phenomenon!
Hamburger Menu: Revolutionizing Website Navigation with a Simple Icon

The evolution of  

Hamburger Menu

The “Hamburger menu” has been an integral part of user interfaces (UI) since its inception into the tech landscape. The icon, represented by stacked horizontal lines, is used as a navigational button that expands to reveal additional menus when selected. The history of this simple yet effective tool can be traced back to the early 1980s when it was used on computers based in bank offices by German programmers.

Fast forward over 30 years and the hamburger menu has become ubiquitous with UIs everywhere — online, mobile apps, electronics and more. In subsequent decades it underwent various iterations and today it can be found as three or four interconnected lines as well as other custom designs according to the content of menus they represent. It's also often located in different areas of web UIDs such as top left corner or right side depending on website's navigation structure techniques.

What makes this little chunk of code so versatile? Its own simplicity is likely its best feature - no extra wording will distract users from what matters most: primary navigation functions collectively presented in one place on any device regardless of their size. It provides easy access to options without cluttering header sections which facilitates efficiency for viewers browsing websites or using applications running on multiple platforms with variable resolutions accordingly . As a result hamburger menu has become universally embraced across many UI genres having taken on position at center stage for ease-of-use needs wherever graphics prompts are required for expanding menus or display operational settings.

In short, "Hamburger Menu" will continue to play a major role in creating great user experiences into the foreseeable future allowing excellence in accessibility complemented by robust aesthetics enabling intuitive control with just one click… so don't expect it going away anytime soon!

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