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Description
Navigation & discoverability have consistently been problem areas highlighted by respondents to our quarterly System Usability Scale survey. Now that Navigation & Settings is an official category currently owned by the Create:Editor group, we’ve had the opportunity to dive deeper into this problem space. This video shares an overview of the key challenges in our current navigation structures.
Slide deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ofb3I28KEUpLWBzveuKUfNY0NtqOkLvD8iBSSijcZDI/edit?usp=sharing (internal access)
Evaluating navigation changes handbook page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/ux-research-training/evaluating-navigation/#evaluating-navigation-changes
A
Now,
let's
start
with
some
background
on
the
initiative,
navigation
and
discoverability
have
consistently
been
problem
areas
highlighted
by
respondents
to
our
quarterly
system,
usability
scale
survey.
Now
that
navigation
and
settings
is
an
official
category
owned
by
the
create
editor
group,
we've
had
the
opportunity
to
dive
deeper
into
this
problem
space.
A
A
We've
learned
that
the
terminology
and
categorization
we
use
in
the
product
do
not
always
resonate
with
our
users,
we're
organizing
a
lot
of
information
in
the
way
we
communicate
about
it
at
gitlab,
especially
how
we
think
about
our
stage
groups.
For
example.
Some
of
our
features
are
separated
into
different
categories
when
users
may
expect
to
find
them
together
in
the
context
of
a
workflow.
A
This
can
make
it
difficult
for
users
to
find
what
they
need
and
discover
new
features
that
may
be
useful
to
them.
We're
currently
working
to
address
this
challenge
by
conducting
research,
to
figure
out
the
best
ways
to
structure
information
so
that
it
aligns
with
the
mental
models
of
our
users,
while
also
promoting
our
company
goals,
challenge
two
difficulty
finding
and
managing
settings.
A
A
A
As
a
result
of
this
research,
we
are
working
to
improve
the
categorization
of
settings
to
improve
findability.
We
also
are
working
to
provide
contextual
access
to
settings
so
that
users
can
manage
settings
in
the
context
of
their
own
workflow
without
having
to
navigate
to
the
dedicated
settings.
Section
challenge:
3
overwhelming
amount
of
items
in
the
left
navigation,
while
gitlab's
all-in-one
solution
is
an
advantage
for
many
teams.
Usage
of
the
features
varies
by
persona
and
user
goals.
Additionally,
many
users
are
using
gitlab
alongside
other
tools.
So
not
all
product
offerings
are
relevant
to
them.
A
A
Now
that
we
have
completed
that
first
step,
we
are
exploring
ways
to
simplify
the
menu
structure
and
also
apply
styling
changes
to
the
left
navigation
going
forward.
We
will
want
to
carefully
evaluate
decisions
to
add
new
items
to
the
navigation
and
also
consider
impact
on
the
findability
of
existing
content.
A
Let's
take
a
deeper
look
at
insights
from
the
research
here.
We
have
a
set
of
baseline
metrics
for
navigation
structures
in
gitlab.
These
metrics
are
a
snapshot
of
how
users
performed
on
tasks
using
the
existing
navigation
experience.
As
we
propose
changes,
we
will
run
studies
that
evaluate
how
the
proposals
perform
in
comparison
to
the
baseline.
A
A
A
So
it's
important
to
note
that,
though
the
overall
success
rate
was
low,
certain
areas
were
more
challenging
than
others.
We
found
through
this
research
that
settings
analytics
and
operations
information
were
the
most
difficult
to
find.
Let's
take
a
look
at
task
performance
in
areas
with
low
success.
A
They
saw
stark
differences
between
users,
expectations
and
our
current
organization
structure,
for
example,
in
the
first
click
test,
the
majority
of
participants
expected
to
go
to
analytics
to
find
the
metrics
dashboard.
The
word
operations
is
challenging
as
a
section
label,
because
it's
a
word
that
can
apply
to
many
different
contexts,
so
it
can
be
harder
for
users
to
anticipate
what
they
can
find
there.
A
A
We
also
saw
that
users
weren't
aligned
on
where
they
expected
to
find
settings
information,
as
previously
mentioned
load.
Success
rates
on
settings
tasks
often
resulted
from
users
choosing
the
wrong
category
under
settings
or
looking
for
the
setting
directly
in
the
feature
area,
for
example,
users
expected
to
be
able
to
set
the
project
path
for
a
pipeline
subscription
directly
in
ci
cd
pipeline
instead
of
having
to
navigate
to
settings
ci
cd,
additionally,
differentiating
between
settings
general
and
other
categories
was
particularly
challenging.
A
The
analytics
section
presented
a
similar
challenge
as
the
settings
section.
If
you
take
a
look
at
the
analytics
section,
the
category
labels
don't
always
give
a
clear
picture
of
the
information
that
can
be
found
within.
Additionally,
users
had
trouble
choosing
between
analytics
insights
and
other
categories.
A
A
A
From
this
first
survey,
we
found
that
the
majority
of
respondents
considered
it
easy
to
find
what
they
need
in
gitlab
and
to
know
where
they
are
in
gitlab.
The
score
of
3.8
for
context
and
3.5
for
effort
will
serve
as
baselines
at
the
system
level.
We
will
use
these
scores
to
compare
user
sentiments
over
time.