Thanks for the feedback @scrollaway. I appreciate that fact you recognize we have made a lot of improvements and that there is a challenge in scaling and keeping the user experience consistent.
"Stuff that is conceptually duplicated. And also there's yet another "Settings" sub-section."
I am curious to learn more about what you feel is duplicated in the sidebar? The 'settings'in the sidebar is specific to the project you are currently viewing. The 'settings' in your avatar drop-down is specific to you. Are there other duplications?
"The CI UI could use some reorganization as well. It still takes me several clicks to get to the current running build log from the project homepage."
We agree! We have an epic to prioritize UI/UX improvements for CI/CD. It is still being updated but you can view it here: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/295. I would love to hear any more specific area you think we should concentrate on.
Thanks so much for the feedback, the UX team here at GitLab is always looking for ways to improve the user experience. It looks like someone else in this thread mentioned that you can choose between a fluid and fixed layout depending upon your preference. Some prefer a fixed width and others hate wasted screen space. We try our best to accommodate everyone.
Given that, we agree that this can be improved. We have an issue here discussing page-width, https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/design.gitlab.com/issues/47. As you can see, in many cases we have decided that we should reduce the width in order to improve readability. I will add a link to your comment in the issue as further data on our user's preferences.
Also, we opened an issue with your suggestions for the project list page. Feel free to jump in and add any more thoughts you have there, feedback is always welcome. Here is a link: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/49504
I did this and am so glad I did. After being with GitLab (a remote only company) for 6 months, I took the leap and bought a 5-acre hobby farm in rural Florida.
Pros: Quiet! No traffic sounds or screaming neighbors. The owls get a little crazy but I'll take it. Beautiful dark skies at night with no light pollution. In general, things feel more peaceful and slow, even if I am dealing with work deadlines.
Cons: Satellite internet (ugh). I had to supplement with a hot spot which has proved to be a lifesaver. There is a lot more upkeep with 5-acres to mow. I also have 2 rescue horses on the property but I consider that a pro :)
We completely agree with you here. We want TODO to be meaningful and useful to everyone. The UX team is working through an exploration issue to address this, we would love to hear your thoughts on the issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/43474
This isn't nitpicky at all @Karunamon, this is UX gold! I have created issues for some of your major points here, I would love to get further input from you as we work through them.
"While their company has invested in design resources, it feels like every designer is focused on a specific feature. When you group those features into a page (like merge requests) you get this jumbled mess."
Thank you for the honest and direct feedback. We work together as a team and try to keep a holistic view even as we iterate on specific features. We know we can do better here and are actively working to make things consistent and understandable. We have opened several epics dedicated to this, you can see them here: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics?scope=all&utf8=...
Under your profile settings/preferences, you have the ability to set your layout to 'fluid' This will allow the application to take up 100% of the width of the screen. If you have more specific UX issues you think we should address, I'd love to hear them!
"I think these are mostly tiny UI things to change, and only with some typeography improvements, some borders and better contrasts, things will be a lot more clear." YES! Couldn't agree more. We (the UX Team) are pushing hard to get changes like this in. I opened up a new issue to capture the comments here https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/42331. I will add your insights to the issue, much appreciated! And...LOVE that you used that example in your 5min tweak <3
Thanks for the feedback. I've created this issue for the UX team to discuss ways we can make this better. We agree, there are a lot of opportunities for improvement here.
Hey Dan, Sarrah from the UX team here. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts here. Is there an issue you've created that you can point me to? If not, that's ok. Maybe you can tell me two or three UX changes we could make that you feel would have the most impact on MR and Issues.
"New iterations didn't follow a continuous plan-do-check loop; everything was handled more like do something, get feedback, figure out something that you feel addresses that feedback, and then consider it done."
We are never done. We will always be iterating and improving. Much of the feedback we received confirmed assumptions we already had but wanted to test, such as collapsing the navigation, improving breadcrumbs, etc. Other feedback was new and we were challenged to solve those. Everything that was added to this release will undergo a round of user testing and be subject to iteration.
It does not sound like a complaint at all @carussell, thanks for the feedback.
Thanks, Andrew, this is exactly what I was going to point to. We are making sure to base our UX changes on actual user feedback and research. I would also say that GitLab's UX has to evolve in pace with the product. As we add features to support 'idea to production', we need to make them easy to find and intuitive to use.
You can define the default theme for your instance in the GitLab configuration file config/gitlab.yml. Hope that makes it a little less bleghghgh for you!
We are glad to hear you like the new design and feel that each change has been an improvement. We value iteration here at GitLab, making the smallest change possible and getting it out as quickly as possible. This allows us to ship, gather feedback, and readjust quickly. You can learn more about our process here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration
There is an issue for that https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/18596. It has not been our priority as we have been working on the navigation but it is something we are keeping in mind for future focus :)
" the top gobal navigation bar and sidebar navigation structure are very similar to Bitbucket's, but they take Github's "code first" approach to displaying repositories (the first thing you see when opening a repository in Gitlab or Github is the source tree; on Bitbucket the first thing you see is the readme and a summary of bug reports)."
Thanks for the feedback! Glad you spotted the differences between BitBucket's Design and our own. While we would love to design with a blank slate, we are not. Our users arrive with expectations and deeply implanted ideas of how things should look, feel, and behave. We have to temper exploration with practicality. The downside of that can be that the UI has a similar appearance to other platforms.
"Stuff that is conceptually duplicated. And also there's yet another "Settings" sub-section."
I am curious to learn more about what you feel is duplicated in the sidebar? The 'settings'in the sidebar is specific to the project you are currently viewing. The 'settings' in your avatar drop-down is specific to you. Are there other duplications?
"The CI UI could use some reorganization as well. It still takes me several clicks to get to the current running build log from the project homepage."
We agree! We have an epic to prioritize UI/UX improvements for CI/CD. It is still being updated but you can view it here: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/295. I would love to hear any more specific area you think we should concentrate on.