App Tales 1.0: This is a Hamburger.

Every industry has its nomenclature. In the market research world we use all kinds of acronyms to describe things. When talking about online surveys we say LOI (length of interview) and CPC (cost per complete). We talk about industry groups like ESOMAR, CASRO, The ARF, and the like. Many of us go all day long on conference calls, happily throwing out these acronyms, as though everyone knows what we're talking about. There's an assumption that we're all speaking the same language.

The same is true in the app world. I recently spent three hours on a Skype call with an app designer and an app developer. The developer and I were talking away about "the hamburger" for a good portion of the meeting. "Do we want to have a hamburger?" and "Do we need to have a hamburger?" and "If we have a hamburger we could do this, but if we don't have a hamburger, we could do that."

Finally the designer speaks-up and says, "Uh, what's a hamburger?" Silence fell on the call...and the developer from South America quietly Skyped us the image posted above. We all burst out into laughter. So friends, who might be speaking a different language, this is a hamburger. You see it in many of your iPhone apps. It's also known as vertical side bar navigation. So now you know, and I bet you're also craving a hamburger!