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| Stage | Ecosystem |
| Maturity | N/A |
| Content Last Reviewed | 2022-04-29 |
Thanks for visiting the GitLab Navigation & Settings Category Direction page! This page belongs to the Foundations Group within the Ecosystem Stage and is maintained by Christen Dybenko (cdybenko@gitlab.com).
Much of this page is inspired by the work our UX department has done over the years leading the way in research and design for the navigation and configuration experience within GitLab. As a global, foundational aspect of the GitLab product, the Foundations Group within the Ecosystem stage leads this area but is a collaborative cross-stage effort.
This strategy is a work in progress, and everyone can contribute. As we continue to iterate on improving our Navigation & Settings Direction, we have separated our efforts into two workstreams to make sure we achieve our goal of making this experience lovable. The following table outlines how you can best engage and help achieve this goal:
| Workstream | DRI |
|---|---|
| Existing Navigation Improvements | Foundations Product Design Manager |
| Future Navigation Direction | Christen Dybenko |
Please comment and contribute in the issues linked in the Settings and Navigation epics. Sharing your feedback directly on GitLab.com is the best way to contribute to our strategy and vision.
The Foundations group is responsible for creating navigational structures that are intuitive, in tune with user needs, and representative of the numerous workflows of our community of users. Navigation is not just about getting from point A to B; it can shape workflows, empower users to discover more efficient ways of working, and ultimately determine how comfortable users are with a product. From the moment users log in for the first time to when they start diving deeper into GitLab’s diverse feature set, our navigation structure is critical for shaping the user's path and, ultimately, their success in using GitLab.
Similarly, GitLab can be customized and configured to meet a wide variety of use cases using instance, group and project settings. The flexibility offered within each feature is greatly impacted by the user's ability to discover, manipulate, and return to these settings with confidence and consistency.
We want to provide a better experience for users to complete common navigational tasks. These include:
With regard to the Settings experience, we are looking to improve discoverability and consistency within the pages. Our efforts are focused on:
In short, all roles & personas interact with navigation. We are focusing on helping users orient themselves around the things that are most important to them, so they can be more productive.
We are focused on information gathering to understand the current state. This will allow us to make informed decisions on the best iterative steps we can take to improve navigational tasks once the team is more fully formed.
Stay tuned to our release kickoff YouTube playlist for updates on our research.
We have not planned to launch a whole new navigation experience. The work we have in the backlog to enhance the navigation is rather high in volume and many of the issues are heavy in weight. We will initially focus on issues that we can ship quickly that will have a high impact on how users interact with Gitlab.
As this is not a marketing category, we don't have a specific measure of maturity.
Recently, we conducted system usability research to better understand how our users interact with GitLab and also benchmark our results. In the feedback from the open text of the survey, we found a few key themes that tie back to our navigation. Below is a list of videos explaining our findings.