Spotify Replaces Hamburger Menu With Navigation Bar on iPhone

[MacRumors]

As a few users have noticed over the past day, Spotify has begun rolling out a small but significant design change to its iOS app that does away with the hamburger menu and replaces it with an easier-to-understand navigation bar across the bottom of the experience. The new bar more closely resembles the rest of the apps in Apple's ecosystem, particularly the navigation menu on its own streaming music service, Apple Music, which is now rumored for a design overhaul announcement at WWDC.

Before the update, Spotify users had to tap on the three-line hamburger button in the top-left corner of the app to open up a launch pad menu that would bring them to other sections of the service like its radio and music library. Hiding much-needed areas of Spotify from the immediate view of its users made it somewhat of a hassle, especially for newcomers, so the introduction of the straightforward traversal cues presented by the navigation bar should help everyone out.

Specifically, the new bar houses tabs for Spotify's Home launching pad, an area to browse new music, a search function, access to radio, and your own library of music. Understandably, some in-house testing by Spotify discovered that with the tab bar, user interactivity with these menu options jumped up 30 percent over the hamburger UI, while also encouraging new music and artist discovery and keeping users inside the service instead of seeking alternative solutions in other music streaming apps.

iPhone users in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Sweden will begin seeing the navigation bar update as the rollout continues today, with the company promising additional markets and platforms in the coming months. Spotify Music is available to download from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Spotify Replaces Hamburger Menu With Navigation Bar on iPhone

 

[smacrumon]

Hamburger requires an extra touch just to reveal what's available inside the bun. Less touches the better.
Keeping it clear, simple and easy to use. What a brilliant formula.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I noticed this just this morning when I was going to work and getting some music going in the car. It wasn't that way yesterday for me. This is a nicer way of interfacing with the app than the hamburger button.

 

[Dydegu]

Awesome! It was way too convoluted to get to search sometimes.

 

[nfl46]

This is way better like this! Great job, Spotify!

 

[Corrode]

Thanks goodness the hamburger seems to be dying across most apps. The bottom menu of five is much better UX.

 

[hfletcher]

I already found the Spotify app much easier to navigate than Apple Music.

This is a welcome change that will make it even easier

 

[leoformaggio]

Well done, Spotify! But actually this is a tab bar, not a navigation bar. Please, update the article if possible. Reference: https://developer.apple.com/library...html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006556-CH12-SW52

 

[masteroflondon]

"across the bottom of the experience" ?

 

[Rogifan]

Now if apps can just get rid of the elipse....yes I'm looking at you Apple Music.

 

[cambookpro]

Finally - I've lost count of the number of times I've been caught in some hellish Back > Back > Back > Back > Back > Back > Hamburger Menu loop just to get back to the home screen when looking at an album or artist.

 

[dannys1]

"Hamburger menu" is one of cringiest terms ever. I refuse to use it.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Awesome! It was way too convoluted to get to search sometimes.

If that was "way too convoluted", how do you describe Apple Music?

But yeah, this does seem like a nice improvement. The best just got better.
[doublepost=1462370008][/doublepost]

"Hamburger menu" is one of cringiest terms ever. I refuse to use it.

Prior to learning that the button was called the "Hamburger button" (a year or two ago) I just called it the "List button". The icon doesn't always have 3 lines - often it just has 2, sometimes it has more - so I feel like the term "Hamburger" doesn't always work. It's supposed to literally be showing that a list will be available if you click on it.

 

[macduke]

What's old is new and what's new is old. Crazy that the same pattern Apple developed in 2005-2006 for the iPhone launch the following year is still being used so widely today. I suppose the same could be mostly said of the desktop and mouse, but considering how many different experimental touch interaction patterns I've played with from various apps over the years, it mostly just comes back to this simple, original pattern.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to innovate touch interfaces. Apple tried with 3D Touch. I hope they try again in iOS X by improving it or somehow making it more obvious with future technology that provides tactile feedback, perhaps on the display surface itself. For now it just adds an extra layer of complexity that most users don't bother with using. I consider myself a high-end user and barely use it outside of text selection in most apps. When I talk to other 6s users about it, it's as if they don't even really know what I'm talking about. Then I show them and they're like "Oh that thing. Yeah sometimes that's annoying."

 

[Canubis]

Now if apps can just get rid of the elipse....yes I'm looking at you Apple Music.

Maybe I've been living under a stone for ages without knowing, but – serious question – what is an elipse in UI design? Only remember this vocabulary from math and geometry classes… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse

 

[zorinlynx]

Wow, there was no update. It just changed.

Just how much of the Spotify app is in the app itself and how much is on their servers?

 

[Ben2998]

Maybe I've been living under a stone for ages without knowing, but – serious question – what is an elipse in UI design? Only remember this vocabulary from math and geometry classes… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse

I think he's referring to the three dots (...) that you can see around various web and Material designs. Apple Music uses it for a more in-depth look at a particular item.

 

[zorinlynx]

This is one of the things that really bugs me, and it's happening more lately.

Back in 2007 when Apple released the iPhone they created an easy to use, efficient UI paradigm. It was quickly adopted by most third party apps and most of them were easy and enjoyable to use as a result.

Then, a few years later, apps started trying out new UI schemes just "to be different" and edgy. Of course, these schemes weren't as easy to use, but the companies wanted their apps to be seen as fresh and not another rehash of what's come before. The result was atrocious UI design as found in Spotify and even Apple's own Music app.

Companies need to stop trying to be "different" and they need to start working on good UI design again. If a UI paradigm is so good that multiple companies end up using it, so what? It's a good paradigm. It makes apps easy and fun to use. Leave it be.

 

[Pakaku]

It's seriously called "hamburger"?

 

[dampfnudel]

Hamburger requires an extra touch just to reveal what's available inside the bun. Less touches the better.
Keeping it clear, simple and easy to use. What a brilliant formula.

There are a few apps that I use often that still use the "hamburger" approach and I wish they would change that.

 

[OtherJesus]

This was my biggest gripe with Spotify and the advantage that Apple Music had.

I could not stand using Spotify, having to tap the top left corner 10 times just to get back to the true main menu.

Now if Apple would clear/clean up their music app. Like, what's the difference between "delete from my music" and "remove download". Why would I ever want to "delete from my music" a song that I paid for from iTunes? Apple Music suffers from lack of an instruction manual.

 

[smacrumon]

There are a few apps that I use often that still use the "hamburger" approach and I wish they would change that.

I guess its been a way to superficially tidy up the interface, keep things looking neat and out of sight. It's certainly not the worst design, but there are other ways.

 

[dannys1]

If that was "way too convoluted", how do you describe Apple Music?

But yeah, this does seem like a nice improvement. The best just got better.
[doublepost=1462370008][/doublepost]

Prior to learning that the button was called the "Hamburger button" (a year or two ago) I just called it the "List button". The icon doesn't always have 3 lines - often it just has 2, sometimes it has more - so I feel like the term "Hamburger" doesn't always work. It's supposed to literally be showing that a list will be available if you click on it.

Yeah - "list icon" works perfectly well for me! Especially as what you said, it literally shows a list - that makes it one of the most obvious looking and designed icons ever...and some div came along and called it a hamburger button, jeez.

 

[Derekuda]

LOL! This makes iPhone users look stupid. As if they don't understand how to navigate the universal hamburger sign that the majority of mobile websites and apps use. Have fun using your 2007 icon design taking up a 10th of your screen space. So happy i switched to android years ago. The iPhone is a dying relic.

 

[Simplicated]

This is one of the things that really bugs me, and it's happening more lately.

Back in 2007 when Apple released the iPhone they created an easy to use, efficient UI paradigm. It was quickly adopted by most third party apps and most of them were easy and enjoyable to use as a result.

Then, a few years later, apps started trying out new UI schemes just "to be different" and edgy. Of course, these schemes weren't as easy to use, but the companies wanted their apps to be seen as fresh and not another rehash of what's come before. The result was atrocious UI design as found in Spotify and even Apple's own Music app.

Companies need to stop trying to be "different" and they need to start working on good UI design again. If a UI paradigm is so good that multiple companies end up using it, so what? It's a good paradigm. It makes apps easy and fun to use. Leave it be.

Well said. Now if only Google would stop shoehorning Material design into iOS...