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Comment by jdhn

8 days ago

As a UX person, this is the type of stuff I love to see posted here. So many people don't understand how atrocious the UX is in non-sexy career tracks such as manufacturing. One question I have is how users have reacted to your leftmost nav bar. 13 icons is a lot, do you show them all at one time, or do they dynamically appear based on the user role of the person who's logged in at the time?

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jdhn

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barbinbrad  8 days ago

man! i wish i knew how to do a better job with that. there's just so much stuff. do you have any ideas?

  • jdhn  7 days ago

    So you could try grouping icons into sections, labeling the sections, and then clearly delineating the space between said sections. For example, you could have small text in all bold and all caps as the section title. Another user suggested using text with the icons, which is good for accessibility. Also, looking at the first screenshot in your Github, you could completely merge the left icon only nav with the nav directly to its right. This could result in saving some space.

    Also, if you really wanted to, you could move back to a more traditional top menu where you have the section title, mousing over the section would open a menu (what is now your icons), and then if needed you could have a submenu underneath (what is your left nav with the words in your first Github photo). Discoverability would potentially take a hit but it's a different way of doing it.

    If you have any other questions feel free to reach out, I like doing this stuff.

    Edit: Another user suggested using AI enhanced chat to navigate around. This is a sign that the information architecture is WAY too confusing. AI agents shouldn't be utilized for navigation purposes.

  • sixdimensional  8 days ago

    Give users an AI assistant they can ask to navigate them to the right screen or section of the application?

    In a previous job, we built our AI assistant so that it could operate our UI in the front-end and it was very powerful.

    • barbinbrad  8 days ago

      like a cmd+k type deal or something different? we do have cmd+k navigation to everywhere currently + global search, but i worry that less sophisticated users might not use it.

      13 replies →

  • ketedrum  7 days ago

    if you're gonna keep the left icons-sidebar, its probably a good idea that you label the icons - i think its mentally exhausting for all users to remember what each icon stands for all the time, and also you may want to change the icons themselves in future.

    i'd also suggest to inline the left sub-menu: so much space under the left sub menu ends up unused. better to inline it at the top of the page, and widen the main content area.

    anyway congrats on what you've achieved so far; looks great and best of luck!