What should be on the top bar of a Web site?

Question

The top bar of a site shows links that the user uses a lot.

Here is Stack Exchange's top bar:

This shows links that are of interest for the user:

• Stack Exchange homepage
• Search box
• Link to user profile
• Link to inbox
• Link to Achievements
• Link to Review Queues
• Help
• Other Communities

These are the links that are the most important to the user, hence they are at the top of the page ^[1].

I'm designing a site with the following menu items:

• hamburger menu ^[2]
  • link to forum
  • my account
  • login page
  • signup page
  • GitHub repo link
• link to home page
• current logged in user
• log out link

What items should be on the menu bar, and what should be in the menu?

^{[1]: by default they're sticky, but there's an option to turn them off.
[2]: yes, a menu button on a menu bar.}

Answer 1

To answer the question, you might wanna elaborate on the product you're designing the menu for...it's difficult to provide a useful reply without that info.

You might want to look into the information architecture of this site though...I'd be interested to know why you have login page and signup page under the hamburger menu?

Usually, in your header you have a logo, profile icon, perhaps search - if the site is searchable and it provides value, links to the most important/relevant pages e.g. home, hamburger menu (with rest of the options).

Answer 2

What are your users goals ? What are the business goals ?

That is the way to determine the order and hierarchy of the elements in your navigation. It's also important to determine the frequency of use of certain pages. Do they need to access "My Account" frequently, rarely and also the information architecture to make sure people are able to easily discover what they need.