Spotify Replaces Hamburger Menu With Navigation Bar on iPhone

[kdarling]

It's seriously called "hamburger"?

Yes, because it looks like a piece of mystery meat between two buns. The mystery being the fact that the primary navigation menu is hidden from the user. Sometimes they get cute and hide it behind a logo instead.

It's one of the most godawful, lazy, stupid things that anybody ever came up with. Worse, almost every newbie mobile developer on the planet copied it.

If it were up to me, I'd fire any so-called UI/UX developer who has used it as a design shortcut, instead of actually figuring out a decent menu system that is easy to use on a mobile screen.

Here's a good example: Zillow on the iPad. When I'm moving between the latest results of my favorite searches, I have to keep hitting the hamburger menu, then choosing Favorites, then the Favorite to view. It's awkward, painful and slow. For no good reason except they like hiding the main menu to save a bit of tablet screen space.

 

[jonnysods]

I like this enhancement. Not sure how it made its way into a Mac tumors article.

 

[pirata]

I noticed the change last night, I like it. I've been a premium user for several years and I do not plan on switch to anything else but I wish the had the same family plan pricing as apple music.

 

[bbfc]

"across the bottom of the experience" ?

In all seriousness though, this is a much welcome change.

 

[Canubis]

Tbh I see this comeback of the bottom menubar very positively also in regards of ever growing smartphone displays over the past years and (finally!) optimizing thumb-navigation-usability. While everything on the screen was easily reachable with the thumb of same the hand holding the device when using an iPhone 4 or even 5 (if you had a bigger hand), it's very inconvenient (if possible at all, depending on your hand size) to reach icons in the upper left or right of iPhone 6 or 6S. Often used features shouldn't be placed in these positions. Finally, this is Spotify's reaction.

 

[ctg7w6]

I like this enhancement. Not sure how it made its way into a Mac tumors article.

Lol mac tumors.

 

[Pakaku]

Here's a good example: Zillow on the iPad. When I'm moving between the latest results of my favorite searches, I have to keep hitting the hamburger menu, then choosing Favorites, then the Favorite to view. It's awkward, painful and slow. For no good reason except they like hiding the main menu to save a bit of tablet screen space.

My favourite part of the iPad experience is running into UI elements that are clearly designed for iPhone-sized screens.

 

[canadianreader]

Who came up with the "hamburger" term?
It's so unfortunate the update didn't reach Canadian AppStore yet

 

[thefourthpope]

"across the bottom of the experience" ?

That got me too. Something I would imagine Jony Ive saying...and I don't mean that as a compliment.
[doublepost=1462407645][/doublepost]

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.

Totally agree. There needs to be consistency with at least basic navigation strokes like "go back" and "make the picture go away."

 

[mwchris]

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.

I refer to that as the "Meatball" menu.

 

[Casiotone]

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.

Yeah, that "universal hamburger sign" is so good that Google is now bringing back the bottom navigation bar to Android...

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/15/11236152/material-design-update-bottom-navigation-bar

And as seen in the article, the standard Material Design navigation bar will be even taller than the standard Apple one. Will you switch to Windows Phone now?

 

[adamneer]

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.

This pretty much sums up Microsoft's post-XP design strategy. "Remember where everything was in XP? Well now it's in a slightly different location. And why put everything at the top when we can put some of that stuff on the bottom, or even the sides! Don't worry though, it'll all be arbitrary, so you won't have to waste brain power guessing where things might be - just click around aimlessly!"

This also fairly accurately represents Adobe's design strategy for Acrobat.

 

[Sleaka J]

Yeah, that "universal hamburger sign" is so good that Google is now bringing back the bottom navigation bar to Android...

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/15/11236152/material-design-update-bottom-navigation-bar

And as seen in the article, the standard Material Design navigation bar will be even taller than the standard Apple one. Will you switch to Windows Phone now?

Ha! Nobody is switching TO Windows Phone.

Although I had a good laugh at this:

taking up a 10th of your screen space. So happy i switched to android years ago.

And I thought: What, like this?

 

[MuzakaEklekta]

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

*ellipsis

 

[WestonHarvey1]

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.

You do know the hamburger menu is pretty universally despised in the UX world, don't you? Android vs iPhone has nothing to do with it.

 

[deadshift]

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

The ellipsis (rather than ellipse) is the triple dot ... thing. It's a vestige of the old UI from Mac OS 7 et al where buttons and menus actually indicated what they would do. Apparently the hipsters are so removed from good, consistent, and informative UI that they don't even recognize it. Normal buttons and menus would cause actions and so they were given verb names like cut and paste. If the button or menu would bring up a dialog rather than directly perform an action, that would be indicated by the ellipsis so that you would know that this would start into a conversation about doing something. Ellipsis buttons are safe in that you can find out what they do by entering the dialogue without actually committing to anything yet. I love the Elipse. I love buttons that look like buttons. I love borders on objects and a non-flat UI. I hate unnecessary movement of icons and widgets.
I'm a little off topic, as I don't even use spotify so I can't say if the new UI is better than the old one. But I can absolutely say that the iTunes UI is a total nightmare. In MacOS and iOS.
I like the Discover app for my credit card. It uses the "hamburger menu" button to expose a standard web-pagey left side nav bar. It's awesome. Minimal screen space used, simple and orderly navigation easily available. I don't know why anyone is doing anything else.
[doublepost=1462460116][/doublepost]

You do know the hamburger menu is pretty universally despised in the UX world, don't you? Android vs iPhone has nothing to do with it.

If the hamburger is hiding a contextual menu type list, then yeah it's horrible. If it's holding a site-standard nav bar, it's awesome. It's like a home-page directory listing. And hiding this behind a single little corner button great Because I don't want those things in my way and on my tiny screen when I'm diving through content. Hamburger home/nav button all the way.

 

[oliversl]

finally

 

[tonyr6]

I hate the hamburger menu. It confused the hell out of my parents and even me. Where is the settings to change the station. Wait it is on the left click on those 3 lines no you just quit the app. Try again. Stupid design.

I am also glad Google is doing the same. Just get rid of it on the the Google apps like Play Music.

 

[smirking]

You do know the hamburger menu is pretty universally despised in the UX world, don't you? Android vs iPhone has nothing to do with it.

It's not entirely bad. It has its uses. They're often pretty useful and not onerous for things like websites where you don't need to repeatedly return to the same navigation points (and often don't need to access the menu at all). But when there's a lot of back and forth navigating to be done, yeah, it's an idiotic tradeoff.

 

[djkasmic]

On my iPhone I don't see the bottom bar, Spotify is uptodate, restarted the app, logout, restart the phone, still seeing these odd three lines.

Please help me. I am on 9.3.2 b4

 

[Sleaka J]

On my iPhone I don't see the bottom bar, Spotify is uptodate, restarted the app, logout, restart the phone, still seeing these odd three lines.

Please help me. I am on 9.3.2 b4

Apparently, it's being rolled out country by country. You may not see it for a few weeks. It hasn't updated in Australia yet either.

 

[koobcamuk]

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

You literally just did.