Bottom Navigation Pattern On Mobile Web Pages: A Better Alternative?

Whenever you hear of “mobile navigation”, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? My guess would be the hamburger slide-out menu. This design pattern had been in use since the first responsive design days, and even though a lot has changed since then, this particular pattern has not. Why is that?

How did we start using the top navigation with the hamburger menu in the first place? Is there a better alternative? In this article, I will try to explore these questions.

The History Of The Top Navigation And The Hamburger

The first hamburger menu icons started appearing in the ‘80s. It was designed by Norm Cox for the Xerox Star — the world’s first graphical user interface. He also designed the document icon for the same interface. This piece of history was uncovered by Geof Allday (who actually emailed Norm Cox). You can read the whole email response by clicking here. Later, it was seen on Windows 1 & and DOS.

The current mobile navigation — as we know it — was popularized by Ethan Marcotte’s “Responsive Web Design” book back in 2011. Since then, the top navigation and the hamburger became the industry’s standar.