It's funny to see these trends in UI, starting in the early 90s it seems they gained more and more toolbars and features and navigation elements while reducing content area, then in the middle of the last decade they started getting hidden more and more behind menus and layers of menus (it continues today) to increase content area, and now we're at a point where opposition to this movement is becoming more apparent.
For me, the biggest issue I see with the example hamburger buttons there is that they don't look like buttons --- they look more like an air vent/grille, a stylistic thing rather than "touch here to get more".
>For me, the biggest issue I see with the example hamburger buttons there is that they don't look like buttons --- they look more like an air vent/grille, a stylistic thing rather than "touch here to get more".
Agreed, but if the trend continues eventually it will become known as the menu. It took my way to long to figure out what the hamburger did across all the apps and devices. I really disklike it in firefox and chrome on desktop, it seem unwarranted, but I guess firefox's change is just conforming to what the designers see as a common icon set.
I see two issues with menu / option icons.
1. There is no universal icon. There is the 'up' arrow on some IOS and android apps, the '...' on android, and now the hamburger. The fact that the hamburger doesn't look like a button will become irrelevant once the general user associates it with a menu. I personally don't like it either, but all I really want is consistency.
2. Related to this consistency, the hamburger button doesn't always perform the expected function. Both of these are UX issues that cannot be easily standardised. It really is noticeable when it 'breaks' the flow of the application by changing the state of the main window instead of offering a menu. I can't recall which apps I use do this, but I remember being frustrated, much like the abuse of the back button on android (I think google play breaks this on the My Apps sections).
> For me, the biggest issue I see with the example hamburger buttons there is that they don't look like buttons --- they look more like an air vent/grille, a stylistic thing rather than "touch here to get more".
Why do you consider that an issue, if I may ask? The generic nature of the button is exactly why I think it's actually a good icon, as it universally seems to mean 'tap this for more, but without completely losing your current context (as opposed to a back button, for example).
Any less-generic icon would not always be appropriate, and thus make this functionality less predictable.
Not that I think it's a good UX pattern, by the way. I'm just saying that if you're going to use a 'more' button, this seems like a better solution than custom buttons where you're not sure what they'll do.
I don't think that the hamburger button was ever meant to look like a button. It's supposed to be a place that you can drag and move like a grip. The interaction where you can tap it and a menu will appear is just their for user convenience.
For me, the biggest issue I see with the example hamburger buttons there is that they don't look like buttons --- they look more like an air vent/grille, a stylistic thing rather than "touch here to get more".