it’s heavy, unintuitive and difficult to open

Android introduced its own design language a few years ago. Material Design came to give Google’s operating system a unique identity, his transitions have been better since. Over the years, the Mountain View company has not overlooked this aspect at all, as Material You represents the third iteration of this particular design.

However, as they say, all that glitters is not gold and Material You has an element that is currently somewhat inefficient, due to the use of gestures as a mode of navigation. Yes, we refer to the side menucommonly known as hamburger menu.

The side menu is part of Material Design

It all started with the first release of Material Design: Google wanted to create design consistency for its operating system.. It has done this very well, supporting this language so that developers can do the same with their applications.

The Android owner had to lead by example and started by updating your apps, which quickly adapted the shape and image of Material Design. Everything was going fine. Also, the incorporation of the side menu or hamburger menu was key.

This menu is displayed by scrolling sideways, from left to right, or by touching the icon with three horizontal lines (hence the name hamburger). With this section, developers organize the different sections and settings of their applications, making the interface cleaner. But, as we will see later, this is not as important today as it once was.

This was the first (successful) attempt by the Mountain View company to have Android had its own identity. He succeeded, and his legacy can be seen today: many applications remain stuck with the design of Material Design 1 and even with the second version.

Discord in the same Google apps: some yes, some no…

The simplest criticism that can be made of the American company is lag between your own applications. If you create a standard design that makes the interface easy to navigate, apply it everywhere. Still, today there are big differences in app design, but let’s see some examples.

Starting with Gmail, the official mail application, we see that the side menu appears in the left corner. This houses a host of important actions such as moving between trays, entering settings, switching to other Google apps, and more. It still makes sense here, but as we’ll explain later, it’s hard to unwind.

Another app that owns it is Google Drive, but this time it’s a little useless. The only option that is not removable is access to the trash, which could be added (as happens in other applications) in the menu that appears when we touch the icon of our Google account. In the case of Google Maps, the side menu is long gone, moving relevant categories to the top bar and bottom menu.

Now we move on to the Google Play Store, the official Android app store. In this, Google has updated its design to Material You, even on tablets and Chrome OS. The side menu is conspicuous by its absence, it is another application that demonstrates the inequality in terms of design. The cases of YouTube and YouTube Music cannot be overemphasized, as they have always gone their own way, even though they now benefit from the Material Design 3 interface.

The side menu reappears in Google Files. File Explorer keeps the button of the three horizontal lines to save access to app settings and help. Again, we end up with an empty side menu. So why keep it?

We continue to explore Google apps and come to Contacts. On this occasion, It serves as a direct access to change the accounts we have synchronized and thus see the contacts of one or the other. This action can be performed from the app settings, so we have a reiteration of the options available.

It seems that Google has lost its way with its apps, especially since it wants to make it easier for manufacturers to adapt design lines. Also, we have yet to comment on the root of the problem of including gestures as a method of navigation in the green robot system.

With gestures, it is more difficult to deploy it: Google must remove it and knows the solutions

This is not the first time that Google has received criticism for the material design and its application in the various applications that make up the ecosystem. But currently, there’s a bigger problem than the difference in app design: gestures.

Don’t get me wrong, gestures aren’t a problem, but They represent an additional difficulty in applications that have a side menu. This may not affect right-handers as much, who tend to back gestures to the right side of the screen. But it affects all users who try to pull down the side menu with the swipe gesture. As these gestures are here to stay, the Android owner must choose.

When we want to open it, we can make the mistake of closing the application. It happens to me every day and it’s very annoying.: Instead of bringing the side menu to the screen, I moved back, spoiling the action I was doing at the time. The hope that remains is that Google knows the solutions. Even if you’ve tried to fix it in the past, the cure is worse than the disease.

The standardization of gestures has brought about this clash of functionalities which does not promote navigation, spoiling the user experience. There are two possible solutions we are talking about:

• Move side menu items to bottom barby creating subcategories or adapting them elsewhere in the application.
• Drag these items to the context menu which is displayed when you touch the image of our Google account. This function is found in all applications, and offers a better grip, especially when using one hand to control your mobile.

For now we can only wait the tendency to implement the side menu is less and less. With the bottom menu, apps get a better one-handed grip, and it’s only a matter of time before Google finally consolidates this more comfortable design for us. The side menu is set to die soon, and we couldn’t agree more.