I feel as though some of the recent UI changes were cosmetic and degraded the experience. I was especially unhappy about the sidebar being pushed into a hamburger menu (which can be pinned open, mind you).
I'd really like for UI updates in the future not to be jarring and seemingly pointless. I really liked the UI right before the overhaul, only minor tweaks seemed truly necessary. Many of the tweaks I would have suggested before have come through; such as putting profile information and notifications in the upper right hand corner. I'm glad about that.
Other than that; I'd like to say that I have really liked using Pivotal Tracker for developing software. It has a rigid pipeline between requirements and results. Configurability ruins some productivity tools. It would be swell to have something like "Pivotal Tracker lite" associated with GitLab (in that GitLab CI is). It's not a difficult kind of software to do reasonably well, and it would make GitLab the ultimate software project productivity suite.
Thanks for your feedback - we are always working on improving the UX/UI and appreciate your input! I know that large changes can feel jarring at first but we hope that in the end, they help improve workflow and productivity.
The sidebar is a global navigation and not always necessary when interacting with page-specific content on the site. GitLab is very content heavy and by allowing the sidebar to be collapsed, it allows users to have more space on smaller screens to read/scan the information that they need. As you mentioned, the sidebar can be pinned so users can view the navigation all the time if they prefer, esp if they are using a larger screen.
If you have other examples of changes that you felt were pointless, I'd love to find out the reason for the change for you!
I've asked some people that work on our UI to respond, but we're aware that we have some ways to go before it's really good and that the large changes that we're making can be painful at first.
> Other than that; I'd like to say that I have really liked using Pivotal Tracker for developing software. It has a rigid pipeline between requirements and results. Configurability ruins some productivity tools. It would be swell to have something like "Pivotal Tracker lite" associated with GitLab (in that GitLab CI is). It's not a difficult kind of software to do reasonably well, and it would make GitLab the ultimate software project productivity suite.
Could you elaborate on what kind of features we'd be required to add given your suggestion? What do we miss?
I'd really like for UI updates in the future not to be jarring and seemingly pointless. I really liked the UI right before the overhaul, only minor tweaks seemed truly necessary. Many of the tweaks I would have suggested before have come through; such as putting profile information and notifications in the upper right hand corner. I'm glad about that.
Other than that; I'd like to say that I have really liked using Pivotal Tracker for developing software. It has a rigid pipeline between requirements and results. Configurability ruins some productivity tools. It would be swell to have something like "Pivotal Tracker lite" associated with GitLab (in that GitLab CI is). It's not a difficult kind of software to do reasonably well, and it would make GitLab the ultimate software project productivity suite.