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Hamburger Icon

Sometimes referred to as the “Sandwich”, “Hamburger”, “Air Vent”, or “Hotdog”, the Context Menu has many names, but people often don’t exactly know what to call it.

In ServiceNow, the icon first was changed in the Eureka version to be an icon instead of a dropdown.

This “Context Menu” usually stores additional options depending on the list or form you are viewing. It is an important aspect of ServiceNow that is used frequently.

Hamburger Origin

The Hamburger icon is not new. It is from 1981.

The Hamburger icon was originally designed by Norm Cox for the Xerox Star, the world’s first graphical user interface (GUI).

The icon was designed to be simple and functionally memorable in so to mimic the look of the resulting displayed menu list.

The icon wasn’t originally named the hamburger at first. “We often referred to it — tongue in cheek — as ‘the air vent to keep the window cool,’” said Norm Cox.

“The hamburger symbol’s longevity, as well as that of many other PARC images, is a testament to its simplicity, utility, learnability, and memorability,” says Cox. “At PARC, we quickly learned that there is no such thing as a perfect symbol to fit all users. About the best we could hope for is a simple, sensible, logical, learnable, and memorable symbol that becomes a part of our digital language and subconscious.”

What to call it

Customers can call it whatever they choose, they bought their ServiceNow licenses.

However if you are going to get technical about it, call it the hamburger. :)