For sites with a larger number of sections and subsections the Navigation Drawer is a much better fit. It can be a scrollable off-canvas element to your site as well as be a common place for global state.
The Navigation Drawer is a slide in panel which is primarily used for displaying a sites navigation, but can also be used for displaying global state, i.e. user login.
A user accesses the drawer using a menu button at the top of the screen in the App Bar.
TL;DR
The key advantages of this approach is that the content can grow inside a scrolling element, allowing for larger site structures and it takes up a very small amount of screen real estate.
For users there is a small amount to learning to do to find the Navigation Drawer so having a clearly place menu button is extremely important.
Some developers find they get higher rates of interaction when using a tab bar instead of a Navigation Drawer.
The choice is a trade off between the flexibility of the Navigation Drawer with the visibility of a Tab Bar which you should consider what is best suited to your site.
Updated on 2014-01-06
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