Revisit MR empty state buttons
This is an actionable insight from the UX Department: MRs experience async critique research (insight).
What
The calls-to-action in the merge request's empty state message don't have buttons. It says “push new commits or use a different branch” but the only button is “Create file”.
Is there another call to action here that may make sense rather than Create file
? Would a user understand what file means here? We don't mention file here anywhere else.
It may make sense to say "push new commits to a file" in the sentence above or even "create a new file, push new commits, or create a different branch".
The most common cases this empty state come from:
- Creating a branch from the web UI, without making changes, and then creating an MR for it.
- Using the
Create merge request
button on the issue detail page.
After 13.10
After the MR merged
Current behavior
- Example MR - https://gitlab.com/sunjungp/test-project-mr/-/merge_requests/1
- On clicking the button, users will land on the create new file page in the selected branch.
Guide in the empty state
- Push a commit
- Edit this merge request to use a different branch
Things to be considered
- Right naming for the button
- Or probably we don't need any CTA here?
- Or we need to have more buttons
- Which page should users land on after clicking the button
Proposal
Change the text as follows:
Merge request contains no changes
Use merge requests to propose changes to your project and discuss them with your team. To make changes, use the Code dropdown list above, then test them with CI/CD before merging.