A Brief History of the Hamburger Menu for Web Design

Hamburger menus, the three bars which can resemble a hamburger, are a topic of debate with web designers. It was created in 1981 by designer Norm Cox, however, it didn't become popular until designers had to find a way to put a large number of menu buttons on the small screen of a smartphone.

The pros of the hamburger menu include:
Almost everyone recognizes it It's ideal for minimalist websites You can still have a traditional menu, but hide less popular pages
The cons include:
Users have to go through an extra step On smartphones with large screens, a top hamburger menu is difficult to reach Less engagement
Companies that found less engagement with a hamburger menu on their iOS apps and ditched it include Pinterest, Twitter and Google Maps. Some developers feel certain features are too important to hide.

There are different views on hamburger menus for mobile and desktop devices. A traditional menu shouldn't take up too much valuable real estate above the fold if you put links to lesser accessed pages, like your privacy policy, in the footer. Nevertheless, there are plenty of new options for desktop versions of sites, including full screen menus and transitions with JS And CSS. You can even find the code for an actual hamburger with lettuce and cheese on Codepen.

If anyone reading this remembers web design 20 years ago, there was a debate about where to put the traditional text menu. Left and top menus were the most popular, but some designers thought they were creative by putting the menu on the right or bottom. When hamburger menus first appeared, they confused visitors. Now, everyone knows what they are, but no one can agree on whether to use them. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/fb62zs/im_curious_to_hear_thoughts_on_hamburger_menus_as/.