Inside Voxara’s Decision to Replace the Hamburger Menu with a Bottom Tab Bar

Design · 4 min read

Voxara's product analytics team found that features tucked behind the hamburger menu had 30–60% lower discovery rates than those exposed on the home screen. User interviews confirmed that many users never learned the menu structure and struggled to return to previously used functionality. The team debated alternatives — an expandable dock, prioritized quick actions, or a bottom tab bar — and opted for the latter to optimize discoverability.

Designers prototyped multiple tab variants and tested them with a mix of power users and new sign-ups. They prioritized four tabs for primary jobs, with an overflow place for secondary actions, and used adaptive labels that shifted between icons and text based on available width. During a six‑week staged rollout, click-through to previously hidden features rose by 48%, and average session depth increased by 22% for new users.

The decision forced compromises: the bottom tab bar consumed vertical space and required rethinking the hero area on small devices. The team mitigated this with context‑aware collapsing headers and placing key CTAs within the tab content. Voxara’s design ops team documented the new navigation guidelines so future features must pass a discoverability audit before being added to the overflow area.