How to structure navigation with many similar items?

Question

I am devloping an app which has a number of calculators in it for rowers. I currently have free essential calculators only version, but plan to add some premium calculators later.

I am trying to design the navigation within the app and dont want it all on one tab bar as that will become too clustered and have heard that hamburger menus are not the best idea. I was thinking about having a home screen with cards that would navigate to each calculator and separating them out with titles. What would you recommend?

List of Calculators:

• Basic Calculators
  • Pace
  • Watts
  • Weight
• Premium Calculators
  • VO2
  • Prediction

Answer 1

If you’re only planning to have a handful of calculators and your app’s main purpose is these calculators, you could consider not having a menu and use the home screen.

Using a list on the home screen might not be needed if you’re only planning to have a few, so you could try using tiles with icons and name of the calculator on the home screen.

For the premium ones, you can visually identify them as paid content by methods such as labels for “premium”, “pro”, etc.

Answer 2

I think the solution you end up choosing will depend on the user's optimal outcomes.

Adding a home page selector might be a solution to presenting all calculators without having to use menus, but you probably want to look at how users are working with the calculators on your app. Suppose they open the app to make a quick calculation multiple times, and every time they have to relocate the right calculator and then enter the values, this one extra step adds up after a while and makes the experience less gratifying.

Additionally, if users make multiple calculations during a session, then the homepage solution would mean they must go back, select calculator, perform the operation and go back again to select the next, this will also add up and increase friction.

Simply put, users aren't looking to use the calculator, or even produce the resulting calculation, they are instead setting and getting better at their rowing goals, so the focus must be on the most effective way for them go back to their activity.

UPDATE: Consider swiping and other gestures that allow users to move back and forth between different views. Not only it is preferred for situations where users are busy with other things, but it is easy to memorize where things are after repeated usage. This will also make it easier for them to discover your premium calculators.

Answer 3

Free Users don't need to access Premium Calculators because they cannot access them. You just want them to know they exist (and desire them so they pay).

Premium Users probably paid to access the Premium Calculators, so prioritise their availability for Premium Users.

That said, a neat solution could be to show the Free Calculators as Tabs until a Free User converts to a Premium User and then simply show the Premium Calculators in Tabs (removing the Free Calculators from Tabs and perhaps making them available via a Navigation Drawer).