Improve discoverability of the setting for enabling/disabling left side navigation features
Everyone can contribute. Help move this issue forward while earning points, leveling up and collecting rewards.
Problem
Every quarter in the System Usability Scale survey (&3848 (closed)), we receive feedback from users who are overwhelmed by the number of features that are on-by-default in the left side navigation. This impacts their ability to navigate throughout GitLab and locate the features they need for their workflow. This feedback is often shared by users who give GitLab a relatively low SUS score (below the industry average of 68).
Currently, there is a setting that allows users to disable certain features but it exists at (Project) Settings>General> Visibility, project features, permissions. This setting does not appear to exist at the Group level.
User quotes
- "I feel like GitLab likes to "show off" its many features and menus, and that can be overwhelming for someone new to it. I think it would help if some features would need to be turned on for a project before they appear in the menu, so that I only have to see and navigate what I use."
- "What I find "complex" is the number of gadgets visible (test panel in MRs, wiki, snippets, etc. in new projects, etc.). I would be interested in per-user settings to have some features disabled by default for new projects. I realise that they can be hidden locally using uBlock Origin or similar."
- "I'd love for a way for gitlab to be much lightweight for non-enterprise usage, by disabling completely some parts that are not required (like the whole Operations and Reporting menu elements on the left sidebar) to keep the core operation only (repository, issues, MR, CI, wiki and snippets)."
View more in Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/projects/7fa7fb97-1c9e-41ab-ad3a-55a32987b048/insights/present/f55c0fe6-ef8c-4f4e-a4f2-bb0136b0f4bc
Proposed next steps
- Track current usage of this setting area
- Explore design improvements that promote discoverability of the setting
- Conduct research to evaluate proposed solutions
- Evaluate tracking data after solution is implemented