

Say Goodbye to the Menu Button - cleverjake
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/01/say-goodbye-to-menu-button.html

======
rufugee
Tell you what...I'm a big Android fan. However, the removal of the menu button
and the addition of the "..." action overflow button is the single biggest UX
mistake I've seen on Android so far, for a very simple reason...the "..." is
too small to easily press, and appears at different (mostly inconvenient)
places on the screen. For example, a large part of the time it's on the far
right hand side. As a guy who keeps his phone in his left hand most of the
time, and who typically operates his phone with one hand, I have to reach
across the entire phone with my thumb and _hope_ to hit it. Not so with the
menu button...it was easy to hit, and even if I had to reach across, it was
easy to "feel" my way to it. I miss it quite a bit.

~~~
cheald
I absolutely, fully, 100% agree with this. "Hunt the back/options button"
drives me _nuts_ on iOS. The ramifications of this are that when options
aren't "pretty", they are _hard_ to get to - on iOS, if you want to change
Safari settings, you have to _exit Safari and go open a separate Settings app_
to change them. I swear under my breath every time I have to do it. The
physical back button is the single most powerful feature Android has over iOS,
and the physical menu button isn't far behind.

A single, consistent, verb for "give me more things to do with this view" is
so much better than "guess which button/graphic/icon on this screen means
'menu', then find out where it is, then press it even though it's only 6px by
6px, because we didn't want it to overwhelm our listview".

Maybe a compromise could be reached by either a) adding a visual cue that
there are menu actions for the current view, or b) making menu buttons in your
app invoke the same menu that pressing the menu button would.

I feel like this is trending towards "iOS works with only one button, we
should too", and I think it's the wrong step. The search button I could kind
of see - it was nice, but rarely used just due to the nature of how mobile
apps were built. The menu button? Leave it alone, please. I like it just how
it is.

~~~
ugh
But the back button is horrible now that it doubles as an up button. It
confused me and that kind of behavior makes it utterly useless. It’s a waste
of space.

~~~
fpgeek
When done correctly, there's a separate up button and back doesn't double as
up. There is confusion because when you are drilling down into an app "back"
and "up" are the same place. Even worse, I suspect that confusion is why
developers often get back/up handling wrong.

~~~
ugh
Hm, but then even Google’s stock apps get it wrong. I was using a factory
fresh Galaxy Nexus.

Maybe we are talking about something different? What I mean is that sometimes,
the back button does something different than taking you back to the last
screen you were on.

~~~
fpgeek
Sadly, not even Google's apps do this correctly all of the time.

Google Voice is a particularly dreadful offender. If you click on a Google
Voice notification, "back" doesn't take you "back" and it doesn't take you
"up". AFAICT, it takes you "back within the app", which is often crazy.

Here's the scenario I just tried:

1\. I was in Google Voice talking to person A.

2\. I left Google Voice and was in another app X.

3\. A text arrives from person B and I get a notification from Google Voice.

4\. I click on the notification and go to my conversation with person B in
Google Voice.

5\. I hit "back". It didn't go back to app X (the Right Thing). It didn't go
to my conversation list in Google Voice (the more common wrong thing).
Instead, Google Voice, of course, goes to my conversation with person A!

I can only hope that one of the reasons the Android team published their
design guidelines was to publicly shame the developers of substandard Google
apps for Android.

------
rodh257
I liked the menu button because it meant that you always knew where to go to
get menu options. On iOS many apps have different symbols and locations for
settings and as a daily Android user I've found it annoying searching for
them.

On ICS it's silly checking down the bottom right (where the software buttons
are) and sometimes top right (action bar) for the menu button, and if they are
deprecating the bottom right/menu button option I can see it becoming just
like iOS. When the action bar concept doesn't fit into the design developers
will just have to shove menu options at a random place in their UI. I cannot
comprehend how that is a better option than having a soft/hard menu button in
the same place all the time.

~~~
dsr_
...and what UX "expert" decided that when menu (or action overflow) would
appear, sometimes it would be down, sometimes up top, and sometimes (I kid you
not) both? It's software: if you're going to display something, be consistent
about it!

It's the single most annoying thing about ICS. It's more annoying than the 4.5
hour usable battery life on the Galaxy Nexus. (You get 4.5 hours of screen-on
time. You can manage close to 20 hours, if you don't actually use the thing,
but what good is that?)

~~~
cheald
Sidebar here, but I'm running the Virtuous Inquisition ICS build on my
Sensation, and I'm getting like 60 hours of screen-off time on a single
charge, and something like 12-14 hours of "out and about" usage. Either
Virtuous did something astounding with their build, or something's severely
off there.

~~~
tesseract
I have a GSM/HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus on T-Mobile and battery life is similar to
what you describe on the Sensation. A colleague briefly tried the LTE Galaxy
Nexus on Verizon and returned it within a week, because the battery life was
astoundingly poor as described by dsr_. Conclusion: LTE kills the battery.

------
AndrewDucker
I _like_ having physical buttons. I can reach for them and they're right where
my muscle memory expects it to be. I'm about to upgrade to the Nexus and I
expect to miss the physical back button a lot.

~~~
olex
Agreed... my Desire is currently almost 2 years old and I'm getting a contract
renewal in a month, and I have no idea what phone to get: there are no
smartphones with proper hardware buttons on the market anymore, save for a few
SE handsets; it's all in useless capacitive buttons now, or none at all since
ICS.

------
pixie_
Good riddance. I hate when I look around how to do something and it was hidden
in the menu button the entire time. It was completely unintuitive when there
were menu options to use, and when there were not. That's why I designed the
android version of my app, like the iPhone version, and put all possible
options in the on-screen design itself. It's funny too because other android
devs told me 'nooo use the hard buttons' screw that, even the back hard button
is unintuitive at times, better to put it all on the touch screen.

~~~
socksy
A badly designed interface will still be hiding desirable features behind an
impenetrable "menu" option, only now you have to use the capacitive touch
screen in order to reach it. The physical button was at least consistent and
easier to press (or at least, on my device).

If the menu button is unintuitive, that might be indicative that a redesign
has to take place, rather than that the menu button concept is broken. I don't
see what advantage this change has?

~~~
pixie_
The difference is - when the menu is on the UI then you KNOW there are menu
options available. The hard menu concept is broken because hitting the hard
menu key is a crap shoot, it might do something, it might not, who knows. The
problem is also developers like you think normal users think like them, they
don't. Google has obviously figured this out, though pretty late in the game.

------
spacemanaki
Ugh are they really using the market app's home screen as a good example? I
think it's such a overly cluttered UI.

------
CoffeeDregs
I gotta say that this change makes me feel a little funny. I use Android after
switching from an iPhone, I like Android and I like the menu button. Further,
I understand that there are relatively few ways to do what needs to be done to
support application options. Further, further, I understand that Apple and
Android have blatantly lifted bits from each other. But isn't this a near
pixel-perfect copy of iOS's options buttons? I was kinda happy when iOS stole
Android's notifications behavior because I could feel a little superior for
using Android. Now they're stolen something else from iOS, I feel a little
less superior.

And I realize these are big mean companies, but still I can root for one of
them...

~~~
untog
iOS's option buttons? No, not at all. They're a near-pixel perfect copy of
Windows Phone's option bars:

[http://mobileworld.appamundi.com/cfs-
filesystemfile.ashx/__k...](http://mobileworld.appamundi.com/cfs-
filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.21.04/PerstSearch.jpg)

~~~
CoffeeDregs
Ah. By which I meant: [http://www.idownloadblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/06/Musi...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/06/Music-App-iCloud-iOS-5-2.png)

Looks very similar to:
[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-3KNfy5n9M/TyG235X2rGI/AAAAAAAABH...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-3KNfy5n9M/TyG235X2rGI/AAAAAAAABHM/g_qGEXBdJW8/s400/image00.png)
and
[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KIyVJ4DBLdw/TyGbNsLn4hI/AAAAAAAABF...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KIyVJ4DBLdw/TyGbNsLn4hI/AAAAAAAABFs/xgLPIAaEP6I/s400/image01.png)
albeit with orientation or location changes.

~~~
eelco
That's not an option button on iOS. It leads to a menu of 'secondary' menu
items, that are hierarchically on the same level as the other tabs.

------
michaelhoffman
I might have a different perspective as I began using Android with Ice Cream
Sandwich. I'm not used to apps having a menu button, and those that have one
(or an "overflow" widget) seem much clunkier than those that don't use one.
The worst are the ones with some sort of "More" button from within the menu.

Sometimes we think what we are used to is easier, when perhaps it is not.

------
lazugod
It's impossible to scroll on the linked page using the Kindle Fire browser, a
disappointing discovery given that it uses Android.

~~~
__david__
It's also impossible to scroll on Firefox 9 on a MacBook. Very frustrating.

------
mouly
Replacing Menu button with "..." does nothing. The actions will continue to be
hidden. All possible actions should be visible. If there are too many actions,
then it is a sign to redesign. Creating a bucket for putting misc. actions
will make them less discover-able.

------
radley
They should replace the useless History button with the Options menu button.

But then again, Matias doesn't think of Android OS as an app platform, but
rather a portable web platform. So they don't think about app menus, they're
thinking page navigation.

------
kizza
The biggest mistake here is that it's now impossible to use text to explain
what each button means. I'm afraid that with a lot of apps there will be
features that do not map to an obvious icon, leaving users with the dreaded
old "Mystery Meat" navigation.

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gxs
Soon they will do away with the back button, the search button, and leave only
the home button.

Where have I seen this before?

~~~
beej71
I hope not--the back button really makes it all possible.

~~~
sukuriant
I concur. The back button is the single greatest feature of Android. I do not
understand why they're removing the menu button. Personally, I think it's a
terrible decision for all the reasons listed here; however, the greatest
feature that Android had over iPhone, period, were multitasking and the back
button. Both of those features did, and continue to work hand in hand to make
it a pleasant experience.

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BrainInAJar
Now if only they could kill the "Do random thing" (back) button as well

~~~
recursive
How do you get it to do a random thing? For me, it goes back.

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rkon
The dedicated menu button made navigation in every app not only intuitive but
_consistent_. One of the things that absolutely infuriated me about iOS was
playing a game of "Find the settings/back/exit/etc. button" in every single
app. The best part is realizing the app's developer didn't include the option
you're looking for after 10 minutes of searching, which would be obvious if
you tapped the menu button once in Android.

As a Galaxy Nexus user, it's the one feature of my original Droid that I miss
the most. Google's _"If it ain't broke, break it"_ strategy is really getting
on my nerves lately.

~~~
pixie_
It's not consistent because sometimes the hard menu button shows something and
sometimes it doesn't, no one knows. It's also not intuitive that feature xyz
is accessed by the menu key. The user has to look for feature xyz, get
frustrated, and press the hard menu button as the last resort in their
annoying search for it.

------
nextparadigms
Is it possible to say goodbye to all the buttons and replace them with UI
gestures?

~~~
aen1
Is it possible to go back to phones with physical buttons? When it was obvious
where to press, and not a guessing game?

~~~
seltzered_
There's some advantage with not having physical buttons.

Most notably you can quickly "cancel" an intended action with a non-physical
button by sliding your finger away from it while holding down.

e.g. you're playing a game and accidentally press the home button. slide away
to continue playing. You can't do that with a physical button unless they
implement something where holding the button down causes a less intrusive
action. iOS does this i believe by not exiting the app but bringing up the
multitasking menu when you hold down the home button.

I currently have a thinkpad tablet with physical buttons, and I'm afraid of
using them half the time because of accidentally hitting them.

