Simplifying Navigation
Cluttered & overwhelming
The application's sidebar navigation presents significant usability challenges. It is cluttered, overwhelming, highly complicated, overly engineered, and lacks consistency. The written content is disorganized, contributing to a convoluted navigation experience, and causing users to become easily disoriented. Furthermore, users tend to overload the sidebar, worsening its cluttered nature.
It originated from a fundamental objective: fulfilling the client's requirements.
The initial strategy was to segment platform capabilities into toggleable features. However, despite TicketingHub initially meeting the clients' extensive feature requests, the sidebar became overly complex. The link naming lacks consistency, and the iconography is ambiguous.
Over time, user demands resulted in an interface reminiscent of an airplane cockpit. Although the features were accessible, they lacked clear explanations, and the majority of them were unnecessary for sidebar placement.
Simplify Sidebar Navigation: Reduce clutter and complexity, enhancing usability.
Optimize User Engagement: Encourage users to engage with essential features while discouraging sidebar overload.
Enhance Consistency: Establish a cohesive visual and functional framework for the sidebar to ensure a consistent user experience.
Enhance User Orientation: Design the sidebar to provide clear orientation cues and minimize user disorientation during navigation.
Improve Content Organization: Reorganize written content within the sidebar to facilitate easier navigation and comprehension.
Enhance Usability: Improve the overall usability of the sidebar by addressing existing challenges and enhancing user satisfaction.
Unraveling User Patterns
I conducted an in-depth analysis of user interactions with the platform's sidebar, examining their typical product creation frequency and feature utilization. Below, you can see how most clients commonly navigate and interact with the platform's sidebar.
Ideation and conceptualization
I compartmentalized the menu into islands, each housing its essential pages, while eliminating features and integrating them into primary pages. Additionally, I introduced the concept of "Pinned" and "Recent" areas, enabling users to access recently visited pages and designate them as priorities at their discretion.
From complexity to clarity
Products now extend the menu, reducing clutter, while the introduction of search functionality enables swift access to desired items.
Hierarchy of items
There is a clear hierarchy for menu items in the sidebar in the form of a list where specific elements extend into a sub-menu, this will help in the future in terms of product growth and the addition of new pages to use this space. The three-level list has been divided into thematic groups, which will help the user quickly navigate the list.
Light and Dark
The user will have complete control over the interface with a light and dark background.
Thank you!