Google Friendly Reminder: The Menu Button Does Not Provide For An Ideal User Experience

• Chris Chavez
• 12 years ago

The Android Developers blog was updated today with a friendly post reminding developers that in Google’s vision for Android’s future — there will be no menu buttons. Google hopes to instead, replace the menu button with this little guy (above), dubbed the “action bar.” That means everything that was ever hiding inside the menu window — tucked out of view — will now be displayed plain as day. Inside the app. For all to see.

So, just what happens when you’re using a device running on Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich that has yet to adopt Android’s new “action bar” standard? Well, older “legacy” apps will receive a don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-menu “action overflow” button (those 3 little dots on the side) but make no mistake, this is still a swear word to Google with the company saying on their blog, “this button doesn’t provide for an ideal user experience.” Ouch.

But if your app isn’t up to date, don’t fret. Apparently, it’s fairly simple to update legacy apps with a few simple code changes and Google even went the extra mile to provide a few icons to match the rest of the UI decor.

Personally, I’m going to miss the menu button. Seems to me those software buttons are looking mighty scarce after Google killed the search button. But perhaps I’m holding on to the old world. What about you guys? Would you rather keep the menu button? Or do you feel action bars are really more intuitive?

[Android Developers]