Gabrielle Gosha published a nice piece on the Hamburger Icon.
It’s always felt like a bit of a graphical cop-out to me – an icon that means little until you know what it means. Problem is, it’s built into so many templates and CSS frameworks now that it’s so easy to just accept the default and move on.
The other thing with it is, it’s more and more common to see it cropped off the top left, meaning you only see maybe three quarters of it. Personally, I think this ‘cropped burger’ often reads more as a decorative element than navigation – like a filigree (see below).
Text filigree
Of the six examples above, I think the one in the circle is the easiest to interpret.
EDIT: OK, read that article and that was the first suggestion. Luckily, it’s a short word in English (not sure about other languages.) I think this is only an issue because designers get bored with words and need to do something “designy” … but it’s always at the expense of usability, unfortunately.
I feel like I’d probably expect an ‘i’ to go to a modal or separate page explain details – like an info booth at a shopping center – but not necessarily navigation options.
The only kind of Menu icon that really has any intuitive value to me is the arrow. E.g.
Even though this down arrow could mean various things, at least it is kind of a universal “down” symbol, so that you expect something to happen downwards—such as something to drop down or for the page to scroll down.
Of course, the arrow could point right or left to indicate something sliding in/out from the side.
Speaking as somebody who was initially confused by “hamburgers”, I have to say that one immediately makes me thing of buttons - like coat buttons - and would no doubt have confused me also.
…and you’ve no idea how much that confused me when I first saw it there…
Dots for “read more” I do understand, but it was the big blue circle around them in @Peter’s example that I found visually confusing. Perhaps it’s a good choice if your target audience is unlikely to also indulge in sewing, knitting and other button-related activities…
Changing it now would cause more confusion as it is becoming what is considered normal. I must admit I didn’t know what it was but now it’s built into so many websites and even applications (Chrome has it, Firefox has it) that it will be the norm.
, man
