[Side nav] Icon only mode

[timroes]

I know that we had this discussion already on Slack, but since I see this issue come up with users more often, I want to raise this also as an issue, that users can follow.

The new side nav introduces in 7.8 currently only has two modes: fully docked and fully collapsed. The old mode where you only have docked item, does no longer exist. This mode is incredible useful for users who are known to Kibana and use it in their day to day work and know the icons, and (even with the icons maybe not being self-explanatory) having their mental link from the icon to the application. In that case it needs significantly less space then the docked side nav and give the user access to every application with a "one mouse move" -> "one click" solution.

I think also the command palette/global search won't be a replacement for that, since you will most likely always need at least "one hotkey (to open it)" -> "2-3 keystrokes (most likely at least to find the correct app)" -> "Enter keypress" to achieve the same result. This is basically creating a significantly longer interaction path for users to achieve the same result. (Currently we simply doubled their interaction path from having one click to two clicks.)

For everyone coming here, the current "work-around" is to switch the pageNavigation advanced setting to legacy in your advanced settings:

Related discussions:

• https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-left-pan-menu-7-8/237821

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-core-ui (Team:Core UI)

[elasticforme]

1+

[ryankeairns]

The feedback for the icon-only navigation, despite its efficient use of space ;) , was predominantly negative due to its lack of clarity + the sheer number of icons. Given that pattern of feedback, there are no current plans to add an icon-only version for the new nav design.

Further, per Creative Services, logos/icons are no longer being created for each new product which also decreases the likelihood of Kibana providing an icon-only version.

We can certainly keep this issue open and collect feedback, however what I described above is the current directive.

[imweijh]

+1

[kumaravel29]

+1

[haiz]

+1