Cloud heirarchy and navigation

Product support
#1

Hey balenaCloud team,

The new balenaCloud UI looks great. But I have one peeve that is making me grit my teeth when I need to deal with it: If you’re not going to include the “applications” level in the breadcrumb navigation, please get rid of it. It’s a user annoyance to see the breadcrumbs look like this:

Organizations -> My_Organization -> My_Application

Instead of this:

Organizations -> My_Organization -> Applications -> My_Application

…when, if I navigate to My_Organization, the applications are not listed at that level, but rather in a sort-of hidden sub-level called “Applications”. Please, either get rid of the Applications level, or put it back into the breadcrumb navigation. I bounce back and forth between my applications all the time, and this current setup has introduced an extra, unnecessary step I must take to get there.

Thanks!
Mark-

#6

Hey Mark, thanks for reaching out and providing feedback on the sidebar. We have already discussed about what you said, having the applications list as part of the breadcrumbs, and we will be deciding on how to improve the navigation in the upcoming days.

Also, just to note, the content of the breadcrumbs and sidebar hasn’t changed at all, we just changed it visually, which seems to have revealed a missing navigation element. You could still go to all applications by clicking on the balenaCloud logo in the meantime, but we will definitely be improving the navigation structure soon.

Thanks, and as always, feel free to share your feedback with us, both positive and negative :slight_smile:

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#8

Hi Mark, I just wanted to let you know that we’ve added an Applications breadcrumb so you can easily go back to your org’s apps. Thanks again for your feedback. Cheers!

#10

Hi @sradevski,

The change to bring back the Application bread crumb is better than it was. But why can’t you just let the hierarchy be what it is? It looks like you are trying so hard to NOT show the applications level of the hierarchy, and I can’t understand why.

It seems simple to me, but I realize I don’t have the details you have.

Why can’t the Applications level be just like all the other levels:

Organizations -> My Organization -> Applications -> My Application

And let the left nav/breadcrumb reflect the actual hierarchy, instead of wanting to jump around with the My Organization and Applications layers? Seems like someone is overthink something that is obvious if you just look at it.

#14

Hey Mark, I appreciate the feedback :slight_smile: I understand where the confusion comes from, so let me explain a bit why the breadcrumbs are the way they are. Before we released organizations, you would have a top-level Applications list, and that was all fine, as there was a User<->Application relationship. With the organizations model, an application is owned by an organization, therefore the Organizations -> My Organization -> Applications -> My Application breadcrumbs. If you tried to access an application from the top-level “Applications” list, you are essentially short-circuiting going to an organization and choosing an application from there, but that doesn’t change the fact that an application is under an organization (eg. Github, Dockerhub, etc. have a similar model where you need to go to an org to find the repos for that org). We thought leaving the top-level Applications list will help people mentally migrate to the new model, but maybe it caused more confusion than anything, and it is something we’ve discussed internally. You can always click on the balenaCloud logo to go back to the top-level Applications btw, I assume you were already aware of that. Let me know if that makes sense :slight_smile:

#16

@sradevski,

We’re kinda talking past each other, I think. :slight_smile: It seems like you are explaining the same thing I’m trying to explain, but as a justification for the current layout. And I’m using the same info to try and illustrate why the nav is complicating something that is actually simple. Applications should be its own layer in the nav. But the nav attempts to somehow circumvent that and hide the applications level, or move it to a different place than all the other levels in the hierarchy.

I tried mocking up a UI that shows what I mean, but I am terrible at quick graphics.

#17

Hey Mark, we’re not going to nitpick over some artwork, have you seen some of my Google Drawings? They are pretty terrible. :slight_smile:

Any chance you can attach what you have sketched out so we can take a look? Back of napkin artwork is just fine!

#19

OK, I’m game. I’ll see what I can put together in the next few days.

Cheers!

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