Friday, March 29, 2019

usability - Hamburger menu icons - should they be on the left or right?


Hamburger menus (the three small horizontal bars: the new menu icon). Should they be on the right or left?


I'm only thinking of mobile and tablet applications.


enter image description here


The pattern I see the most is on the left side: Youtube app, Evernote app, and many more. However, I've seen the argument of the right being more user-friendly because when you're grabbing the phone with your right hand, it's easier to reach the menu.


enter image description here


What do you guys think? Should I go with the flow and implement the menu on the left side?



Answer



This menu got "famous" because Facebook and Path implemented it for the first time. Personally I'm not really attracted to this menu but if I need to choose a side I would choose the right side.


That's because aprox. 67% of users use the right thumb (so that means the right hand) and in several studies have proved that the screen area is more difficult to reach with this hand posture is the top-left one. Something that you can see properly in this image from the LukeW's book Web Form Design

enter image description here


The navigation of an application of mobile website it should easily reachable and accessible. In this way the experience is more comfortable (at least for that 67% of right hand users).


Here you can find a really interesting article about how users hold mobile devices: How Do Users Really Hold Mobile Devices?


No comments:

Post a Comment

technique - How credible is wikipedia?

I understand that this question relates more to wikipedia than it does writing but... If I was going to use wikipedia for a source for a res...