Android News
Is Google right to say farewell to the Menu button? [POLL]
January 27, 2012 | by Andrew Kameka
Android OS
The menu button has lost its space among the elite conventions of Android UI design. What once was Menu, Back, Home, Search has become Back, Home, App Tray, and Google wants Android developers to get used to it. But should they?
Following Scott Main’s blog post on the Android Developer blog yesterday, Android fans are wondering if Google made the right decision to encourage developers to downplay the Menu button and embrace the Action Bar. In a reply to someone’s Google+ post, one disappointed user called it the “worst idea ever,” saying that “Android should have stuck with the menu button just because it’s always been there and apps are developed around that.”
Not anymore they aren’t. Google urges developers to stop relying on the menu button because the Action Bar is the new home for navigation. The Menu button was previously seen as a “catch-all for various user options” says Main, but the action bar puts a focus on specific actions. Take for example Dropbox. The pre-Ice Cream Sandwich version requires pressing the Menu button in order to search for a flee, but the Honeycomb/ICS version has a dedicated search button on the access bar. It’s quick, convenient, and neater. And in the event that I need to access more features – like settings, for instance – that aren’t on the action bar, there’s still the Action Overflow button.
It’s not that the Menu button is “dead” – it’s just been reincarnated. The Action Overflow contains the items once housed in the Menu section, and developers can still support Menu on legacy devices with one line of code. So what’s the problem? Who would have thought that a simple change to UI conventions, which arguably makes more sense, could upset people?
So I ask you, great reader of Androinica, who’s right here? Should Google have downplayed the Menu button in favor of the Action Bar/Overflow, or should the company have kept doing things the old and familiar way?
Is it better to have an Action Bar?
- Yes. Long live the Action Bar! (49%, 165 Votes)
- No. The Menu Button was overthrown and I will mourn my fallen hero. (42%, 142 Votes)
- No opinion. I don't really notice or care about the difference. (9%, 29 Votes)
Total Voters: 336
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It’s more convenient that a menu button is at the bottom than in an action bar at the top.
I usually access the back button (below) after an on-screen action, so for me, a menu button at the bottom is the next action after an on-screen action.
It’s easier to reach at the bottom than if it’s on the top (where it will usually be).
I don’t usually reach for the top part unless I’m reaching for the notification bar.
Agreed you can’t hit the top action bar easily with your thumb with one hand. This will probably cause more driving accidents (0 hands on the wheel instead if 1 lol).
I’ve had my Gnex for a little over a month and I love the new layout. Note the menu overflow button still shows up a lot on the bottom right alongside the back button, home and App Tray.
As much as people don’t like change this one was needed. ICS or Android 4.0 is definitely a push in the right direction. And the action bar as well as the less obtrusive, but still easy to see and find menu overflow is a good change.
They seem to have forgotten that full-screen games aren’t going to want to want to lose screen real estate to an action bar. The menu button was a far less obtrusive way of bringing up an options screen.
I support it for this reason: I started my Android usage with the Eris, after a year switched to a Droid 2, and just this week got the HTC Rezound. After getting used to the menu button’s location on the Droid 2, I constantly hit the home button instead of the menu button right now on the Rezound. Putting the menu button in the action bar now keeps its location consistent.
The big problem with the menu button is discoverability, it requires users to actively click it to discover additional options. The problem is most users don’t do this as there is no hint in Gingerbread that menu options are available. I’m the offer of an app and the number of questions I get about features users think are missing but are actually in the menu is ridiculous. The action bar is far better as users can immediately see what actions are available in the current context.
Google is doing things on trial and error method… Why google?
Because that’s how you discover what works and what doesn’t: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html
If it’s at the bottom I’m all for it. If it’s at the top it’s a terrible design idea!
Exactly.
If it’s at the top, my hand and finger would be obscuring the screen while tapping on the buttons.
Not to mention the distance my finger need to travel to reach the action bar.
Why can’t we have both?
Is it necessary to take away alternative methods of doing things?
Leaving in the option would cause more of the “fragmentation” people are always criticizing Android for. I think this is also an answer to people complaining that the search button is gone. Now developers can just put a search option in the action bar if they support search. The point is 2 buttons which were sometimes used, and sometimes not, are now gone and replaced by options which appear whenever they’re needed. It’s an adjustment, but it’s probably for the best.
Coming from froyo on my Desire to ICS on my GNex. I don’t miss the menu button, froyo, or even sense for that matter.
I’ve been a android user since the beginning, I do not miss it. I love the new lay out on both my gnex and Prime. It’s a step in the right direction, especially for someone not familliar with Android and the hunt and seach that the menu button required
I just wish they’d make up their minds with Android. Its one thing to have an OS like Windows change its interface once every 4 or 5 years and require a lot of work to make your app “modern”. Its an whole other thing to change major interface paradigms every 6 months. Not only can users not figure out what’s going on, but there’s no way devs can keep up (and hope to maintain backwards compatibility with the phones people actually have). You’re stuck looking old and outdated or new and shinny. But getting both is near impossible. Even Google’s own apps are showing wear from it.
I’ve had my Nexus a few weeks now and google’s decisions are awful, just awful:
1. Instead of having a menu in the same place, I have to hunt for it now, and there’s no way to tell whether an app doesn’t have a menu or you just haven’t found it yet. Imagine if whenever you opened a Word document the menu bar teleported to a random place on the page, sometimes at the top, sometimes at the bottom, sometimes you have to close the document to get at it. Yes, in several apps menus that used to be one-tap accesses now make you close the file you’re working on to find the menu button.
2. Nostalgic for the early 90s? I hope so, because the joy of burn-in is back. Walk into a verizon store and have a look at just how badly the home screen is burned into the galaxy nexuses only a couple of months after release. If you wondered why the softkeys shrink to dots in some applications, here’s your answer.
3. ICS apparently had a persecuted southpaw for a team lead because OK and Cancel buttons are now reversed throughout the OS and all apps. Nothing will make you want to choke someone with your phone than breathing a sigh of relief after almost shutting it down, reaching for the cancel button on the right, and realizing you hit OK and shut it off because the controls are exactly opposite of every single other damned computer and phone in existence. Further evidence of lefty’s vengeance lies in the fact that the Back button, AKA the button that is used twice as often as any other button, is on the far left instead of the far right. Not only is this opposite of every other version of android, but it forces us to uncomfortably reach our thumb across the entire screen. To add insult to injury, anyone who’s used android before ICS will invariably hit the useless window manager button when they mean to hit Back. But hey, using softkeys does give one advantage in that we can just change the order if we don’t like it, right? Apple’s, I mean Google’s, answer to that is “Nope, fuck you. You’ll use OUR buttons in OUR order and fucking like it.”