Navigation Research Initiative - Researcher Recommendations

What’s this issue all about?

Phase 3 of &1342 (closed). As GitLab's product offering grows at a rapid rate, we need to consider how information architecture and feature findability may be impacted.

The goal of this research initiative is to understand how users currently progress through different tasks that span stages and identify ways to improve this experience from a holistic perspective. This initiative should create a starting point for assessing navigation in GitLab from a more holistic, "cross-stage" workflow perspective, evaluate the naming of features/categories, and result in recommendations for improvements.

Research Objective

Create recommended changes based on information architecture best practices and feedback from users and internal stakeholders.

Methodology

• Affinity mapping - https://app.mural.co/t/gitlab2474/m/gitlab2474/1562257089124/f923fac2690b48e15b11d15ed4b05ca4591c2c8f
• Create usability issues matrix - issue prioritization (task criticality, issue frequency, issue impact)
• Create solutions matrix - solution generation, solution prioritization

Outcome

• Work with UX research team and UX Designers to identify work that can be achieved in 2019 and improvements to include in the product vision

• Stretch goal: create an MVC for the proposed changes, conduct 3-5 internal usability sessions and 3-5 external usability sessions. Use tasks from #109.