Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Hamburger menus
Raised as a usability problem by 127 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2011–2026), in 65 threads.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Links hidden behind a burger menu on desktop, forcing extra clicks to navigate2026-05-04
- Menu stays open after selecting Features or Pricing, blocking page content2026-03-24
- Hamburger menus hide navigation on sites with only 2-5 destinations2026-02-23
- Must click to reveal menu and then move mouse across screen2026-02-08
- Hidden menu behind a hamburger button frustrates desktop users, who must hunt for options2025-09-19
- No consistent convention for what goes in hamburger menus, so users must click to explore2025-09-18
- Icon-only menu buttons with vague designs give no hint of their function, so users must guess2025-07-10
- People can't tell that the three-line hamburger menu is clickable2025-07-03
- Options hidden behind an opaque icon, so users can't figure out how to do anything2025-07-02
- Users cannot tell what the three-line icon means or that it opens a menu2025-06-18
- Hamburger menus become junk drawers users struggle to navigate, with hidden scroll indicators2025-06-18
- Icon gives no hint of what it does, and hides varied functions unpredictably2025-06-17
- Hides functionality, so users can't tell what options exist under it2025-06-17
- Hidden navigation makes content harder to discover and tasks less successful2025-06-17
- Hidden behind an extra tap, so people open it, miss items and leave2025-06-17
- Inconsistent placement and purpose across apps means users must click to find what it does2025-06-17
- Users can't tell what is hidden behind the abstract hamburger icon2025-06-17
- Hidden menu behind an icon is a place users only visit as a last resort2025-06-17
- Icon variants with outlines or dots become unrecognizable and confusing2025-06-17
- Hamburger menus add an extra click and hide options, making the UX worse2025-06-17
- Users don't realize the hamburger icon is a menu they can click2025-05-24
- Hamburger menus can't be operated by keyboard, forcing mouse use or obscure shortcuts2025-04-22
- Hard to get around; functions buried in a winding maze of taps2025-04-22
- Hidden behind an icon, basic functions are hard to discover2024-11-29
- Can't tell that it's a menu or guess what items it contains2024-08-20
- Navbar auto-hides on click-away, and a separate corner switch opens it, so the menu behaves unpredictably2023-12-02
- Hidden hamburger menus exclude people who can't use a mouse2023-05-06
- Main navigation hidden behind an unlabeled button, so users can't find where things are2023-05-06
- Hamburger menus are used in products despite most people disliking them2023-05-06
- Hidden navigation behind a menu icon is a bad design users are forced to accept2023-05-05
- Menu button is hard to reach and uncomfortable to tap on large phones2023-05-05
- Couldn't tell where the blog's links were; searched header before finding footer2023-05-05
- Hamburger menus ignore accessibility, hard for users with impairments2023-05-05
- Commenter agrees hamburger menus are confusing, though the design is a different element than they claim2023-05-05
- Forced to scroll to page bottom to navigate, if hamburger menus removed2023-05-05
- Hidden menu behind cryptic icon forces users to decode unfamiliar symbols on desktop2023-05-05
- Users must scroll to the bottom and guess the menu is there2023-05-05
- Keyboard navigation scrolls back up to other links, defeating the shortcut2023-05-05
- Hidden navigation makes users unable to find site links, hurting accessibility2023-05-05
- Reaching customer service requires digging through the menu and bot persistence to reach an agent2023-05-05
- Hidden navigation makes features hard to discover2023-05-05
- Navigation is hidden in a hamburger menu or footer, so people struggle to find what they need2023-05-05
- Hidden hamburger menus are confusing and overused, hiding navigation2023-05-05
- Items hidden under the hamburger icon can't be discovered without clicking each time2023-05-05
- The "sitemap" label is unintuitive, so people don't know what it contains2023-05-05
- Hidden behind an icon, navigation options are hard to discover and understand2023-05-05
- Hidden hamburger menu replaces a visible menubar, so commands are hard to find2023-01-27
- Hard to place search and login across split menus; putting them in the mobile menu creates accessibility problems2023-01-27
- Menu opened by keyboard cannot be closed with the mouse, and vice versa2023-01-27
- Hidden hamburger menus are hard to discover for users2023-01-27