Mobile App Navigation| Patterns and Examples
In response to the growing demand for user-friendly applications, the role of an Android app development company has become paramount. These companies are dedicated to creating streamlined and intuitive mobile apps, catering to the preferences of the 6.92 billion active mobile users worldwide in April 2023. Their expertise in simplifying the user experience ensures that users gravitate towards their products in an increasingly competitive app market.
Effective UX services are essential for crafting an intuitive navigation menu in a mobile application. These services focus on optimizing user journeys, ensuring smooth interactions, and designing visually appealing menus that elevate the overall user experience. A well-crafted navigation menu, as a result of proficient UX services, plays a pivotal role in defining the success and quality of any mobile application.
Custom software developers play a pivotal role in enhancing mobile app navigation systems. Their expertise ensures that users can seamlessly interact with apps, bridging the gap between user expectations and software functionality. Explore our blog to discover how these developers incorporate innovative features to create intuitive and user-friendly navigation experiences.
Types of Mobile Navigation Patterns
Navigation through a mobile application must be predictable and intuitive. There is a vast range of design patterns available that designers can easily implement to make a complete navigation system in the mobile app. The top 8 mobile navigation patterns include:
1. The Hamburger Menu
The Hamburger menu, also called the navigation menu, is a very common icon with a hamburger-like shape with 3 horizontal lines. The menu section is hidden in this icon and once you click the icon, you can navigate all the menus.
As the best mobile navigator, it is widely popular among UI/UX designing professionals as it can cover the navigation between 3 lines and it helps users navigate menus more conveniently. The Hamburger Menu is small in size and it saves screen space by hiding all navigational elements.
Key benefits of this menu include:
Simplifies screen layouts
Offers direct access to navigation
Ideal for secondary access
Very easy to recognize
2. Floating Navigation Button
A floating navigation button or FAB is a circular-shaped icon that doesn’t float on the user interfaces. It mainly hovers over content for promoting the primary action in the mobile application. Just like Hamburger Menu, FAB is small in size and takes very less space on the mobile screen. However, sometimes it can distract the users. In such cases, page content may fail to notice. So, it’s not mandatory to add a FAB button on all pages. When you add this icon, you should ensure that it’s leaving a good impact on your user’s mind.
Key benefits of the FAB menu include
Small in size
Takes very little space
Enhances user experience
Easy to recognize
3. Gesture-based Navigation
Gesture-based navigation enables an immersive and excellent experience for mobile applications by allowing app users to swipe in all directions. This is a very popular navigation pattern and gained high popularity among Gen Z people. The smooth interface of gesture-based navigation makes it different from others. Moreover, this is feasible for users and it comes with a pretty UI design pattern.
Key benefits of this navigation include:
Faster, natural & ergonomic navigation pattern
Easy to use
Unique UI design pattern
Improves user experience
4. Sub-Navigation Menu
This is a unique type of navigation pattern that provides multiple hierarchy levels in the application. One of the best examples of a sub-nav app is Amazon. If you’re planning to build an app similar to Amazon, the sub-navigation menu can be the perfect choice for you.
It helps to add category and subcategory sections and enables users to navigate between pages with ease. Sub-nav menu mainly appears as a list and in a dropdown format. This navigation pattern helps to keep app content organized & makes it simpler for app users to find what they’re in search of.
Key benefits of the sub-navigation menu include.
Simple to use
Organizes the app content
Helps to navigate between pages easily
Easy to recognize
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5. Full-Screen Navigation
Till now we were only focusing on such navigation patterns that covered little screen space, but the full-screen navigation pattern comes with a unique concept. As the name suggests, it covers the entire screen space for navigation. Key elements of full-screen navigation patterns include
Simplicity: Navigation should not be complicated. Every page must come with a simple navigation structure that ensures a smooth user experience.
Clarity: The full-screen navigation menu structure should be clear without any requirement for additional explanations.
Consistency: Users must know where they’re & how to quickly navigate back to the app pages they have browsed previously.
User orientation: A well-designed navigation menu should have the same design for all app pages without exceptions.
Key benefits of a full-screen mobile navigation menu include:
Improves user experience
Best for achieving coherence and simplicity
Excellent user orientation
Consistency and clarity
6. Tab Navigation
Tab navigation usually appears at the bottom of iOS apps & the top of Android apps. This is a
UI style and navigation where information is properly organized in tabs that separate content into several sections.
The tab navigation pattern is mainly used to help users switch between pages with similar contexts. This pattern can be a great choice if you have several categories of content.
Key benefits of Tab Navigation include:
The categories properly fit in one row
Easy to recognize
Enhances user experience
7. Sidebar Navigation
Sidebar navigation is one of the best choices for designers who would like to place different categories. This navigation pattern helps to grab the user’s attention and allows them to explore specific categories. The sidebar navigation pattern works perfectly when the information architecture has many items that can’t be grouped into different buckets logically.
Key Benefits of This Navigator for Mobile Include:
Allows to include different menu items
All elements are noticeable
Supports customizable navigation
Easy to use
Utilizes little screen space
8. Top and Bottom Navigation
The top and bottom navigation bars are the two sides of a coin. A top navigation pattern contains a bar with icons and it’s located at the top of the mobile screen. The top nav bar usually shows the important links to the users. A mobile app development company also suggests integrating this navigation as it’s pretty simple & easier to use.
Bottom navigation is another side of the coin. This is a navigation pattern that simply collects primary & secondary navigation links. So that users can smoothly explore the menus with just a single tap. Another major advantage of this pattern is that users comfortably navigate with their fingers, mostly thumbs while holding their smartphone. Most bottom navigation patterns have between 3 to 5 destinations for fast access.
Key benefits of the top and bottom navigation bar include:
Makes it simple for users to click icons
Utilizes little screen space
Improves user experience
Direct access to particular links
Allows to navigate with ease
Best Mobile Navigation Examples
A well-organized navigation system is one of the major keys to excellent user experience on a limited screen. Good navigation always helps users smoothly navigate through the mobile app. Here are the top 5 examples of widely popular apps that use different types of navigation design systems for improved user experience.
1. Facebook:
Facebook is a social media giant used for many things. The smooth interface and seamless navigation system of this social media platform give an unparalleled user experience to every user. Facebook is the best example where you can see the combination of different navigation patterns – a hamburger menu, and a top and bottom nav bar. With these navigation patterns, Facebook can manage both primary and secondary things easily.
2. Twitter:
Twitter is another great example where you can see more than one navigation pattern. It contains a top navigation bar, floating nav button, and bottom navigation that offers a seamless user experience. As a social media platform, this app deeply focuses on the bottom navigation bar that shows five major aspects of the whole application.
3. Tinder:
Tider is one of the popular dating apps which is widely popular among Gen Z people because of its gesture-based navigation system and top-notch user interface. The smooth left & right navigation patterns help to keep things very dynamic, easier & extremely entertaining. Moreover, this app also has a top navigation bar that links important pages to improve user experience.
4. Telegram:
Telegram is an instant messaging app that contains a hamburger menu. The easy UI design and smooth navigation make the app easier to use and navigate. The well-organized hamburger menu of the Telegram app offers the important navigation options a user needs such as new groups, contacts, calls, settings, invite friends, and more.
5. Instagram:
Instagram is a widely popular social site that allows you to click & share reels, stories, photos, and videos with your friends & followers. This platform mainly focuses on the bottom navigation system that allows you to quickly navigate 5 major elements such as home, search, create a post, reels, and user account.
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Final Word
The mobile app navigation system plays a big role in boosting the app’s usability, practicality, and user experience. The limited screen space along with the high expectations of users regarding app usability make a mobile navigation design intuitive & seamless. Technically, mobile app navigation is a vast concept and it requires a lot of creativity. Have any projects in your mind for mobile app development? Stay in touch with Sphinx Solutions.