Comparison of hamburger and bottom bar menu on mobile devices for three level navigation

Abstract: Mobile websites and application are used daily by millions of people as a way of communication and entertainment as well as a professional tool. Content rich apps with multiple levels of content hierarchy face challenges due to the limited space of the user interface. It is important that the application has excellent navigation features along with help and search capabilities [1], as navigation of the user interface is one vital aspect for such web and native apps offering to the user a way to explore its content, understand its structure and use the services that they offer. The efficient identification of the navigation pattern and its usability is a key element of the user experience. This paper compares two different mobile navigation patterns: One of the most common navigation patterns known as hamburger menu, and a bottom bar menu. In order to compare the two navigation patterns a usability evaluation, using a demo application that was developed for this purpose, was conducted. Twenty participants took part in the test were their performance along with their subjective feedback was collected. The analysis of the evaluation suggests that bottom bar menu is more efficient than hamburger menu in terms of total completion time. The qualitative feedback of the participants also suggests that their perceive bottom bar menu better than the hamburger menu one. In addition to their contribution for future research, the study results can help professionals choose what mobile navigation pattern to use as well as better know the benefits and drawbacks of their choice.