[#StartupUX] A Different Approach To Navigation In Mobiles

Raviteja Govindaraju
Ravi is currently working as a product designer at Hatchforce. He is a self-taught UI / UX designer with good experience in designing user interfaces of web and mobile applications.

The key problems with the traditional navigation menu design (the one with a hamburger icon on top) are as follows:

Reaching the hamburger menu on the top is a painful task as it lies in the “non-accessible” zone of the thumb.

I should change the position of my phone and fingers in order to tap it which often leads to a mild pain in the thumb joints.

The mobile screen sizes are getting bigger every day. For instance, iPhone 5 series phones have a height which is 176px more than iPhone 4 series phones.

A different navigation approach can be something like this:

What does it solve?

• Menu can open up anywhere on the screen — i.e. easily accessible by any finger and in any position
• More real estate to show more content which is a big +ve
• Content is not hidden while navigating to other pages or links. i.e. You are always aware of where you are
• Works on any screen size
• Opens up lots of possibilities in design
• Looks sexier

What do you think? Would you use such a menu system or do you prefer the current one? 

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