Introducing new ways to harness the power of AI, build apps, and connect data

AI would not even appear on our wishlist.

100% agree with this. Feels like clout chasing / hype train stuff especially in the face of so many other features we could benefit from more directly (mobile interfaces, long standing bugs, etc...). I am open to being proven wrong though if we get to try it out on Pro accounts! 😉

Shared this in another thread:

I would highly recommend people submit a feature request through the "Message support" option from the help menu in the top right of the Airtable app when in a normal base (not an interface). This is probably the best way to make noise that will get to people who can make decisions about this stuff. The more noise on the same topics the better.

In the chat that pops up, type a few words, hit enter, and click "No" for the help article suggestions until you get the option to click "Help with Airtable product", and then "Feature request" (or "Bug") at which point you can submit a request.

In an attempt to tackle this from all angles, I would like to note some concerns here. Being a creator on an enterprise plan, I have now have the new left hand navigation panel and am terrified of it rolling out to the rest of our team. Although I see its potential benefits, it is going to cause a ton of issues for our team, specifically in mobile use cases. Please please please consider making it an optional navigation change until some of these concerns are dealt with. I have also reached out to support on this.

The old interface menu was annoying (non-hidable, taking up screen real estate in a dashboard), the new interface menu is a true abomination and deserves it's own special place in hell. All navigation, menus, screen icons of ANY kind need to be hidable in interfaces. 

Users need a clean and unobstructed space to put their dashboard data that isn't cluttered with menus, alarm bells, share buttons, an icon containing the first letter of my username, the name of the dashboard I'm viewing, or ANYTHING ELSE what-so-ever. Put all this inside the left menu bar and add a hamburger icon in the upper left hand side of the screen to collapse and expand it. This is achievable in 4 lines of code (2 lines of CSS and 2 lines of javascript). 

Please listen to your users here. There are hundreds of users in the community boards sharing the same sentiments this morning following the release of this obtrusive "feature"

On a 32" 4k monitor running two browser windows side by side, that nav panel takes up 15% of my screen. When I have two interface windows side by side, that's approx FOUR INCHES of wasted blank coloured nav panel. Please undo this. Focus on Mobile Interfaces instead. "Hey, let's change this from the top to the side" gives me flashbacks of every pointless Facebook UI update.   

@Japheth_Beaty 

Try opening it on a 13" laptop. This with a Record Review, and about half of my screen is gone. I really hope they at least make this optional.

The new left hand panel interface is so badly received by our Creator clients that our contract renewal is already at risk. They have men in the field using Airtable on phones in a dynamic environment and this breaks the utility of the entire platform for men on the ground. They can't spare time looking through ways to hide menus and flat useless space taking up the phone in a hardhat environment.

We've got a patch in place to move everyone to Editor but before we can even address that, it appears that we can't even reassure our Creators they will get certain design aspects back before EVERYONE in the field is forced on to this next week and they all stop using it.

Our expectation is that we will now lose the contract. I'm having to prepare staff for contract exit and negotiations on remaining IP from the fallout. It turns the product non-usable in the field.

How about that.

You actually broke stuff in the real world.

There has to be a way to provide this as an option to people. 

Please give your clients time to provide their clients with enough time for change management in their field operations.

Is there a way to turn left nav off? This is pretty problematic for several reasons, including: 

1. This takes up valuable space, especially for users with smaller screens, and it cannot be minimized. Now our grid layouts do not fit.
2. The UX does not look nearly as clean as the white tabs at the top did. I even reset our base to grey and it still looks odd. I need to keep our base teal in order to preserve the colored boxes in the pop out windows, which tell users in that view what they are responsible for, but the teal looks pretty hideous in the left nav.
3. Our users are only using one interface, and don't need to toggle between them. We've also set it up so each team gets their own tab, and ICs will mostly stay in their own tabs. So now we are essentially losing 15% of their screen just so tabs that were already easily accessibly and not really needed are always visible?
4. I've already created all of our enablement videos and documentation and now it's all outdated.

I'm also doing several enablement calls this week and now I have a different view than everyone I am enabling which is okay for me but confusing for them - please let me know if there is a way to toggle this off!

I would really like to reiterate all of the comments that are shared here about the interfaces - while there are some appearance improvements, it has absolutely rendered Interfaces useless for so many customers as seen in this whole thread - and it feels very unanimous. Why not give the simple ability to collapse it like it can be done with views? There are plenty of other things that could be improved with Interfaces that we use third-party tools for (the biggest ones being displaying data from multiple bases and giving read-only permission without having to create an Airtable account) and this release has likely discouraged people from investing their time and resources into building Interfaces. 

I would echo all similar thoughts about AI - feels cheap to go for a half-baked feature that most new and future users aren't looking for in Airtable, and feels frustrating when there are so many more obstacles that need solving. If the goal is to continue focusing on Enterprise (which is its own can of worms), then why introduce features if Enterprise customers are likely using other robust tools for their operations?

To emphasize other commenters --

"I'd really appreciate if Airtable could focus their UI team on fixing problems that the community has raised year on year ..."

"Are you testing these features with non-enterprise customers before launching?"

"This pretty much sums up Airtable in the last years" 

What will the solution be for this? Airtable has the luck of having COUNTLESS members and users, many of whom already have excellent data and UI skills, who contribute tons of great ideas and try and speak on behalf of an average customer. So much of this feedback could have been avoided by gathering and USING real customer feedback, or at least doing user research before rolling it out to everyone. Not many companies/tools have the privilege of having a user base willing to contribute great and valid feedback and will likely be turned away from seeing UI decisions like this that didn't seem to be well thought out first. 

$1.6b raised, and not a single development lead has said -

Hey! Why don't we allow users to opt out of this new UI change?

Over the years, Airtable has endured frequent announcements that become a rolling calamity. I've suggested in this forum at least a half-dozen times since 2018 -- when you start making changes to key UI behaviors, you need to create the ability for some users to opt-out. Otherwise, 50% (or more) will be unhappy.

When will this team learn this crucial lesson?

What everybody has pointed out in this entire thread is exactly how I feel as well. To me personally, it feels like Airtable is driving in their own lane on the freeway going in a completely opposite direction than the rest of us.

As one of the world’s top Airtable consultants for the last 6+ years, it has been a frustrating journey for me. I have yet to personally experience Airtable listening to customers’ product needs, feature requests, or bug reports. I have yet to personally experience them having any sort of open communication with us.

Out of all of their paying customers, I feel that the Airtable consultants should be at the top of the food chain, because each consultant works with dozens (or hundreds) of Airtable customers, meaning that each one of our voices represents many Airtable customers. But even the consultants aren’t told about new features before they come out.

In the last 6 years, Airtable has only given the consultants 2 sneak previews of upcoming product changes, but the sneak previews weren’t designed to gather feedback from us. They were “one-way discussions” (i.e. "polished slideshow presentations") designed to alert us to what was already “locked in” and what was “already decided” by them. No feedback allowed. No changes allowed.

Meanwhile, even basic features that people have been requesting for 6+ years have been ignored. Basic features as simple as “wrappable column headers in grid view” or “dynamically-changing row heights in grid view” are tiny features that would be a massive game changer for customers, but despite years of requests, nothing yet. Never mind all the advanced features that customers have also been requesting for years.

Instead, it feels like Airtable sits around, dreaming up their own ideas, instead of actually engaging with people who use their product on a daily basis.

Sadly, I think that the major disconnect here between Airtable & its customers might be caused by the problem that many others have brought up to me: I have been told that the majority of Airtable employees rarely use their own product on a daily basis like the rest of us do. For example, I was told that the Enterprise Sales Team exclusively uses Microsoft Excel and Salesforce. Why are they not using Airtable?

The unofficial community of Airtable customers & Airtable experts is in the process of compiling an ongoing list of feature requests in this thread. Most things listed in this thread have been requested for years. The thread is not complete. I still need to add dozens of more items to this list, and I encourage others to do the same.

Ultimately, though, the list is meaningless if Airtable doesn’t really care to engage with us or communicate with us or respond to our needs.

Excellent summation @ScottWorld!

>>> ... the majority of Airtable employees rarely use their own product.

The Golden Rule of Platforms, "Eat Your Own Dog Food" (platformative)

The bigger problem is this:

We're on the cusp of turning this into a marketed service from our regional customer to global. There are other contracts that will be following. We have to depend on the platforms we create for this environment. This is not dependable. It's very distressing.

Makes this all terribly difficult.

@ScottWorld that's really kind sad to read from someone like yourself. So this sentiment and observation exists through all ranks of users and expertise 😯

I understand road maps. Our company has a roadmap as well, yes. The great vision of what we would love to achieve for our customers. But we constantly schedule improvised pit stops to react to what our customers and partners need along the way. Our vision would be rendered mute if it did not align at least 80% with the needs of our customers. And that's not an approach driven by economics but by the simple fact that we love to make people happy. And our customers aren't nearly as verbal about their needs as is the AT community. We would honestly cherish that much input from our customers.

I would really like Howie, Andrew or Emmet to chime in on this as there seems to be a core issue at the heart of what this announcement has triggered.

@Stephanie_Sosa you said "These features will be a game changer..." and indeed they are as I have an entire office ranting at me about the side bar menu. Our teams works on laptops on the field and this is taking up a huge amount of screen real estate. Just got word from higher ups that if it stays as is, we will no longer be using interfaces.

We absolutely need to be able to collapse the new left panel on the interfaces.  It's a disaster, and it should have been announced long before it was put into production, so that existing interfaces could be tested.  As it is I have a client trying to get budget approval and unable to even give a presentable demonstration.  

Real world impacts. This is really important.

I'd call this critically valuable insights for the Airtable team.

Make no mistake, we really love your product. We use it ourselves in the trenches, not just push it to our clients. We don't want to be frustrated.

What happened to the designers who brought us the "Views" sidebar? That is an elegant design. It shows up when you want it, and disappears when you don't need it. You can pin it to make it stay in place. You can adjust the width. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close.

On the other hand, the rollout of the views sidebar was rough. The current sidebar was proceeded by a design change that stirred up a level of outrage similar to what the current interface-left-side-navigation is now creating. The reason was also similar--screen space. Eventually we got official word that Airtable would look into the issue and a form for people to submit feedback. Then we waited for weeks (or was it months?) of silence on the topic before the new version was released. Kudos to Airtable for coming up with a great design. Shame on them for not learning from past mistakes.

Airtable, you already have precedence for so many things that could have made this smoother:
- For the attachment urls changing, you gave us advance warning and an opt-out window of several months.
- For the new homescreen, you gave us the option to revert back to the old version.
- For the views sidebar, you respected our need to control our own screen real-estate.

There are many other things that Airtable has not yet done (such as focus groups with consultants) that could make things better. But there are also things that Airtable has done in the past that they seem to have forgotten. Or the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

@kuovonne Thank you for expressing this so well.

I'm still going over all the pages, and while this seems workable on my large monitor and maybe ok on my larger laptop, I'll probably have to rework some for smaller screens.

I like the thought of using the same approach as with the Views sidebar, if that's possible.  

agreed with most of the comments about sidebar, new Alphabetical Sorting AZ screen...etc
All these years we had stress with our business going on. Since last September, I have been stressed too about the path the Airtable team and shareholders have taken.
I have given enough grace period. After this, I am convinced that Airtable is far away from the original vision and will not go to the right direction. 

The chat gets it. And so does AI.

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Wasted screen space caused by a side-bar pop-up that is full of empty nothingness and obstructs functional features, buttons, inputs, and toggles would generally be considered a bad design practice. In user interface design, it is important to prioritize usability and efficiency by making sure that the interface elements are clear, accessible, and do not hinder users' tasks or workflows.

Releasing such a side-bar feature without notice, especially if it significantly impacts users' day-to-day work, can have negative consequences. Sudden changes to the interface without proper communication or user training can lead to confusion, frustration, and reduced productivity. It is generally recommended to introduce new features or design changes gradually, with proper user testing and feedback, and provide users with appropriate notifications, tutorials, or documentation to help them adapt to the changes.

Overall, it is essential to prioritize user experience and consider the impact of design decisions on users' ability to effectively use the web application and perform their tasks. Avoiding wasted screen space, ensuring clear visual hierarchy, and minimizing obstructions to functional features are important principles of good UI design.

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Thank you, @kuovonne, for the elegant and very well-stated post!  😀

As you mentioned, the entire Airtable customer base went through complete hell and back to get Airtable to fix the "Views" sidebar. It's still not perfect (why does that gigantic tooltip always obscure everything?), but it's about 95% perfection.

> What happened to the designers who brought us the "Views" sidebar? There are many other things that Airtable has not yet done (such as focus groups with consultants) that could make things better. But there are also things that Airtable has done in the past that they seem to have forgotten. Or the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

I think that the 3 biggest engineering problems at Airtable are:

#1. The extremely high turnover in engineers, so there is almost no institutional knowledge of past lessons learned. All of us Airtable consultants have way more knowledge of the past than most engineers at Airtable.

#2. The engineering teams at Airtable are independent silos that have little communication with the other engineering teams. Everybody works on their own little piece of the puzzle, without any regards to how it fits in with the other parts of the product. 

#3. Zero communication with their customers or consultants. No focus groups, as you mentioned.

Hi everyone —Shannon on the product team here to respond to feedback about the new navigation. I wanted to start by thanking everyone for the  thoughtful feedback. Any change to a tool you use regularly is bound to cause some friction, but we want you to know that we hear you. 

First, I want to share bit more context for how we landed on this new design:

We have heard from customers that navigating between interfaces was so buried that they didn’t even realize it was an option. As we began to build Apps by Airtable—and pilot with customers—navigation was something we focused on. It became clear that this navigation was something customers wanted available to all interfaces so they can build apps that start to connect their workflows. As we continue to invest in making Airtable the best platform for anyone to easily build apps, we’re also committed to making it equally as easy for anyone to use those apps. Improving the navigation is one of the first steps in doing just that —so that your end-users can quickly find and engage with the most important workflows.

Again, this is just the first step and we intend to continue improving the experience. To start with, we are actively working to make the left navigation collapsible. Please keep your eyes out for that update coming soon.

While we know that having all interfaces visible to people who can also access the base can provide a painful experience, our goal is to make interfaces what you need them to be so that end-users no longer need to go back into the base, where we know it can be overwhelming and unnecessary for a majority of people. We would love to hear more about what needs are currently missing. 

We know change is not easy, but we hope you’ll continue to give us feedback as we continue to evolve and improve the app building experience on Airtable. Thank you for being part of the community and building with us.

Thank you for the response Shannon,  but before you can dream of becoming the best development platform you have to establish yourself as a stable and development platform.  

That can't be done by rolling out changes in a production environment without providing existing developers with the ability to opt out at the very least.  

I see some very familiar names on these comments, people who have used your application and platform extensively, and who could have, and should have, been able to review and comment long before rollout, not the day after. 

Trust me only works when you've earned that trust.  If this is an example you're not doing much to earn it.

Thank you Shannon. The issue with making the navigation collapsible is that many of us DO need to easily  and quickly switch between the handful of pages on an interface. Having an option to keep that navigation at the top would be ideal. If it's going to be collapsible and there will not be the top navigation bar, there should be icons with tooltips of the names of pages available. Making it collapse completely creates friction when there previously was none.