Hiding everything behind a hamburger menu makes an app look clean and minimal.

Which one would you interact with? A hidden menu or visible tabs? Spotify and Redbooth faced the same choice. Their apps hid every section behind a hamburger menu. Cleaner screen, fewer buttons. It sounded like a sure win. So they measured what real people did.

Taps, time in the app, daily users. Now picture this. You need your orders. But all you see is three little lines. And the less you see it, the less you remember it exists. Here's what they found. Spotify, 30% more tabs on those sections. Redbooth, 65% more daily users.

Researchers saw the same. Hidden menus used 57% of the time. Add visible tabs, 86. So they took the hamburger out. But apps still need menus. Not everything deserves a tab. Settings and help can stay hidden. The best apps use both. Tabs for daily things, a menu for the rest.

Tabs win. If people can't see it, they won't use it.