## Problem statement **Ease of use can be impacted by inconsistent patterns in the UI, incomplete paths, and confusing user interactions.** Users often share that their satisfaction with GitLab could be increased by seeing more polish and consistency in the UI. There are various product behaviors that do not match user expectations, especially if they’ve transitioned to GitLab from competitor tools. ## Key Areas - Dropdowns - Buttons - MRs/Issues/Epics layouts - Filter bars ## User Quotes - “Many micro user interactions are not intuitive and cumbersome. This adds up to a lot of friction when doing my tasks in GitLab. Example: removing a label from an issue, which is something I do many times per day. I ended up reading the documentation on how to do this, as I thought that I was doing something wrong: 1. Open the issue 2. Click "Edit" link in the Labels section 3. Type out the name of the label that I wanted to remove into the Search field under "Assign labels" 4. Find the label in the search results and click on it 5. Click away to finally remove the label Total interactions: 3 clicks + average of +/-10 keystrokes to narrow the search. Expected interaction: a little (x) directly on the label (1 click).” - “I really, really love this product. I just wish it would be more polished, and more consistent. Many things don't make sense, or they aren't like other similar things, and that's really frustrating. I really need to dig deeper sometimes to find why something apparently simple doesn't work well.” - “Some things (Releases, time tracking) are cumbersome to use because they have no web access. It's unclear what a Milestone is vs. a Tag or a Release. Epics are *a must* for any project, and having them in the Ultimate package is, I think, a mistake because one of my employers chose Jira instead of Gitlab Issues for tracking, and that makes some things weird. Not being able to assign an issue to multiple Milestones/Epics is strange, too...” ## Links - See additional user quotes in Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/projects/325abc1c-e438-4837-b187-6af1d4a99d86/insights/present/68694e89-1d80-483d-9e6e-e1db6533a450 - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/216881