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The navigation options are limited. If your app has more than five options, then fitting them in a tab or navigation bar and still keeping an optimum touch-target size would be hard. Don’t use more than five options in a tab bar. The location and logic of the tab bar options on iOS and Android are different.
How big should the touch target be on the bottom of an app?
Touch targets shouldn’t be smaller than 44px to 48px (or 11mm to 13mm), padding included. Many apps use the tab bar for an app’s most important features. Facebook makes main pieces of core functionality available with one tap, allowing rapid switching between features. Facebook bottom tab bar for iOS. ( Large preview)
How does the tab bar help with navigation?
The tab bar fairly easily communicates the current location. Properly used visual cues (icons, labels and colors) enable the user to understand their current location at a glance. Tab bars are persistent. The navigation remains in sight no matter what page the user is viewing.
Can a hamburger be used as a navigation bar?
The hamburger menu has become almost a standard on Android (the pattern has the name “ navigation drawer ” in material design), but in iOS it simply cannot be implemented without clashing with basic navigation elements, and this could overload the navigation bar. The hamburger icon hides context.
Which is a more sophisticated version of tabs + more?
A more sophisticated version of the ‘tabs + more’ navigation is to design a menu that adapts to the screen width, shows as much of the navigation as possible, and puts everything else under a More item if necessary:
The active tab is clearly highlighted as it remains white with the content area while the rest of the tabs are black. The Tabs on WordPress.org connect with page headings which are separated from the actual content area, which proves useful since the secondary navigation is different from tab to tab.