Appreciation post: the day I stopped hiding my navigation menu behind a hamburger icon

For about 4 months I ran my little Etsy shop site with a hamburger menu because everyone said it was clean. Then I saw my analytics and realized 70% of mobile visitors never clicked it at all. I swapped to a simple bottom tab bar with 4 visible labels last Tuesday. My add-to-cart rate jumped 15% in just one week. It made me wonder why so many big sites still bury everything behind that little icon. Has anyone else seen a big change from just showing people where to go?

2 comments

2 Comments

eva_rivera1d ago

Did you test the bottom tab bar against a top bar too or just the hamburger? I tried moving my nav to the bottom on my blog and engagement barely moved, but I think it depends on what people are on your site to do.

nathang671d ago

Honestly, you're right that bottom tabs don't work for every site, but I think you might be missing something about the test itself. 70% of visitors not even seeing the menu is a huge red flag that hamburgers are broken for most people. A bottom tab bar works best when people come to your site to do one specific thing like buy something or check an order. For a blog where people are just reading and browsing, a different layout might make more sense. The real lesson here is that you have to watch your own numbers instead of just copying what big sites do. Those huge companies can afford to hide stuff because they have millions of returning visitors who already know where everything is. For a small shop like mine, making the buttons obvious and sticking them at the bottom where thumbs naturally rest made a real difference.