Hamburger menu!!

[white_Shadoww]

And the UI part, that you say, tiziano27, that people get confused with Metro UI and are familiar with hamburger and tabs, my observation is, it is even harder for people to understand Start screen. When people say, I find WP UI difficult, they refer to Start screen and not the pivots and ellipsis. They don't know how Start screen works. And the app list which is a vertical scrollable list, people find that odd. They are familiar with grid of icons. So, by going with your theory, to make WP familiar to those who use Android and iOS, shall MS scrape Start screen too? Hell no! When people are heading in a wrong direction, you show them right direction. Mass is not always right. That's why Apple never uses hamburger in their own apps. And big companies ex. Twitter and many more are moving away from it. It is only Google which is supporting it. And we are just copying them.

 

[Vaibhav Vibhu]

Seeing all the screen shots I think that the new UI is much better!! We would need sometime to adjust ourselves but this upgrade is worth it!!

 

[a5cent]

The hamburger menu, at least on android, can be opened by dragging in from the side of the screen anywhere on the side it's on. You don't have to tap the actual button.

It's not that simple. It is not Android, but the app which defines how that works. Same is true of iOS and WP (so far at least). Metrotube also has a side menu for which a visual queue is present on screen at all times, and only requires panning (there is no button at all), while Tapatalk's has no visual queue and requires explicit use of the hamburger on the top left. When does panning work for side menu access? It works only when panning isn't used for some other function. In Tapatalk, panning is used to switch between the participated, timeline and unread views. In a mapping application, panning is used to scroll the map. In iOS' and W10's mail client, panning is used to flag or delete mails. In all those cases, and thousands of others, the same gesture can't simultaneously be used to open a side menu, not even on Android. Pivots come with similar limitations.

In a nutshell, the functions an app has, how the developer exposes them to users, and the means by which users navigate within and across apps are co-dependent on an influence each other. It's a thornier issue than it first appears to be.

 

[tgp]

while Tapatalk's has no visual queue and requires explicit use of the hamburger on the top left.

Hmmm, I haven't found a hamburger menu yet on Android that doesn't open by panning. Of course, I don't use every app in the Play Store, but of the ones I use it all works that way, including Tapatalk.

In a mapping application, panning is used to scroll the map. In iOS' and W10's mail client, panning is used to flag or delete mails. In all those cases, and thousands of others, the same gesture can't simultaneously be used to open a side menu, not even on Android. Pivots come with similar limitations.

It even works in the mail client. You can pan in from the side to open the hamburger menu in the Gmail app, and you pan (same direction) an email to archive or delete it. Maybe the limitation is iOS & WP. :wink:

 

[a5cent]

It even works in the mail client. You can pan in from the side to open the hamburger menu in the Gmail app, and you pan (same direction) an email to archive or delete it. Maybe the limitation is iOS & WP. :wink:

Nah, we can implement the same for WP and iOS. No problem. I'm not sure it's the best solution however (discoverability, etc). The point is we can't reuse the same gesture for two things, but yes, edge swipes and non-edge swipes are two different gestures. You are right. Apple's guidelines recommend against it, which is probably why we don't often see it on iOS. I have never even seen that discussed for WP.

Anyway, for reasons mentioned in my previous post, I don't think discussing any single aspect of navigation in isolation makes much sense. More importantly, pondering over the best way to open a side menu, while many doubt the side menu is even a generally good idea, is akin to putting the cart before the horse.

Until we have a catalogue that lists all the functional problems an ideal navigational solution should solve, which we could also use as a basis for judging existing solutions, this thread will just continue to go in circles.

 

[tgp]

Nah, we can implement the same for WP and iOS.

Ha ha I know! I said that tongue-in-cheek. What it boils down to is that on the limited real estate of a mobile device, there is no perfect solution. Until everything is voice activated, I believe we'll have to make compromises somewhere in navigation. But to me the option to open the hamburger menu by panning is one way to help optimize a less-than-optimal solution. I guess I'm not sure what the downside is.

The way the panning works is that if you slide in from the very edge of or off the screen it opens the hamburger menu. If you want to pan the email itself, just start your slide in from the edge a bit. Yes, discoverability is an issue, but you soon figure it out, by accident if necessary. :amaze:

 

[a5cent]

^ no issues with that.

Just remember that recent studies have shown that the time spent using an app drops by about 20%, if it uses side menus for navigational purposes (seems amazing to me but the data is there). Like you said, no solution is perfect, so it boils down to whether that is the best compromise we can make?

 

[tgp]

^ no issues with that. ��

Just remember that recent studies have shown that the time spent using an app drops by about 20%, if it uses side menus for navigational purposes (seems amazing to me but the data is there).

What does that mean? This data could mean 2 things:

1. Users don't like the side menu (most likely)
2. The side menu makes the app more efficient

 

[a5cent]

^ You're over thinking it. Out of sight = out of mind (combined with an icon that is intuitive only by convention) is all it means.

 

[anon(5325154)]

My simple solution for the "universal" apps is to recognize a Device/OS string that tells the app its running on 6" or smaller, and moves those UI elements down below, or loads a different set of UI elements that are hidden on a bigger screen and vice versa. This way the app scales to the device and is truly Universal by definition.

I like your idea, except I would say that the differentiator of what UI elements to show/hide/move/resize really should be the input method (i.e. keyboard/mouse vs. touch), though I guess a combination of input method *and* size would also make sense in some cases.

And we know MS is already taking steps in this direction because we can see from the demos UI elements change when a PC is dock/undock via Continuum.

 

[OutIook]

If you don't like new UI changes, vote here:

https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/6623043-stick-to-modern-don-t-copy-android
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/6997054-keep-all-the-menu-navigation-buttons-at-the-bottom
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/6996793-move-navigation-bar-back-to-the-bottom-in-windows
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/6993439-buttons-to-down-not-use-hamburger
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/7005971-windows10-should-not-copy-android-ios-instead-ref

Also use the Feedback application in Windows 10 Preview version in Windows Phone, this is very important.

 

[BiggishTuba558]

I think they should combine hamburger menu with pivot
https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...ons/7122016-combine-hamburger-menu-with-pivot

 

[Slovenix]

The only thing I would really like to see are smaller fonts.

 

[exyaized]

What do you guys think about my implementation of a hamburger menu in a Windows Phone app?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fv56F23-50

 

[anon(5325154)]

That's pretty awesome and you even put the menu items at the bottom, now that's a hamburger done right. Bravo sir!
Sent from my Lumia 930 using Tapatalk

 

[Laurman]

exyaized, idea of opening hamburger menu with swipe form the left side of the phone is good, but in practice it's something different.. For example, IE mobile allows you go back to the previous page with same gesture and I'll find myself quite often accidentally doing it. Maybe some gestures like two finger swipe might make this work..
On the plus side, I think your pivoting three dot menu is quite clever and has lot of potential.

 

[exyaized]

In my implementation you really need to do a swipe from the edge. Swipe gestures used for navigating in IE or just to switch a pivot page work also from the middle of the screen.
As seen in the video there is no collision between these gestures. However, depending on your usage there may be a little learning curve.
The bigger problem is Microsoft; do they have plans to use the edge swipe for something else? We don't know it. This will kill the concept.