Mobile UX– Should you use Slider Navigation for your App?

Drawer menu a.k.a Slider Navigation a.k.a Hamburger menu became very popular with users in Gmail, and Facebook apps and backing mainly by android.

1. It provided more real estate to the mobile applications and was quickly adapted.
2. It allowed applications to show more menu items which don’t fit into traditional tab bars.

Facebook started testing the usability of the navigation drawer (more about their test process here and they finally replaced it tab menu. Here is some more data from other companies

1. Side drawer navigation could be costing you half your user engagement
2. Hamburger vs Menu: The Final AB Test

Let’s look at the reasons why you need to consider options other than slider navigation to increase app engagement.

The sliding navigation takes you two clicks away from your favourite functionality of the app. You have to click once to show the menu and then click on what you want to view.

Menu options other than the top 2-3 items are hardly used in the sliding navigation. You have to scroll in some apps to see all the menu items. These menu items are eventually forgotten by app users.

Mostly when you use the sliding menu, the app doesn’t remember where you were e.g. in a news feed type screen like Facebook. This is another big disadvantage of sliding navigation that it cannot preserve the state of individual screens. 

Most apps using slider navigation get good reviews from users and we prefer to use them in enterprise apps and some business apps. However, in apps where you need to increase the engagement of users in key areas, you should consider avoiding slider navigation. Apple design experts have always been critical of slider navigation and their viewpoint has been proved by different app developers who took it for a test drive. Vizteck is an expert in Mobile UX. Subscribe to our blog to get the latest updates from us on mobile UX delivered to your inbox.(image credits: Freepik)