馃帹 Design: Cross-namespace navigation
Problem
Nav dimensions
GitLab's navigation runs across 2 key dimensions:
- Namespaces (e.g. projects & groups) - accessed via the hamburger menu
- Features (e.g. Repo, issues & MR) - accessed via the sidebar
Our Nav is currently optimised for navigating our broad range of features (all 1-2 clicks away). However, it deprioritises navigating across namespaces (all 2-4+ clicks away).
Current Nav pains
- Single namespace bias: GitLab is biased towards a monorepo single project approach, but many other companies are not
- Loss of feature context: When navigating across containers, you often lose the context of the feature page you were looking at. (e.g. When viewing issue analytics in GitLab.org, I want to see issue analytics in GitLab.com, but when I navigate there via menu or breadcrumb it takes me to the overview page.)
- Wayfinding & signposting: It's often not obvious what Namespace you are currently in
- Too much content: Navigation favours giving users access to ALL of their organisations shared namespaces without an option to quickly show your favourites.
Hypothesis
By making Namespace navigation equal priority to Feature navigation, we will help to reduce wayfinding confusion and speed up cross-namespace workflows. This should help to improve SUS scores since Navigation & Discoverability are key themes.
Process
- Analyse current state IA and jobs-to-be-done #350990 (closed)
- Explore a broad range of solution ideas
- Validate solution ideas
- Document roadmap & guidance for how other stage groups can migrate features to new nav
Exploration
Lots of my thinking was shaped by my navigation exploration last year #255325 (closed).
- Slack-inspired exploration (Desktop design | Desktop prototype | Mobile design | Mobile prototype)
- Figma-inspired exploration
to-do
- Google Workspace-inspired exploration
to-do
Proposal
tbc
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