Product Suggestion: Please stop showing new View Sidebar

[ScottWorld]

Starting yesterday, Airtable rolled out a new sidebar in the left margin to display the views in our base.

This is fine, but please stop auto-opening this sidebar by default.

Every time we refresh our web browser or enter a base, this view sidebar auto-opens.

It takes up a significant amount of screen real estate, and it is a real pain to continually be closing this new sidebar. Every time we enter a base, we have to close the view sidebar again.

The vast majority of people aren’t continually switching views constantly throughout the day. For this to be ever-present and taking up a significant amount of screen real estate is not helpful.

This should stay closed by default.

p.s. The old view switcher was not difficult to find or use.

[ScottWorld]

Justin_Barrett:

not shift the grid but just slide over it, and auto-close once a new view is chosen

Ah, yes — now THAT is a brilliant design idea that would actually make sense!

If they decide on keeping the sidebar implementation (and now I really hope they don’t keep it), then the design decision that makes sense would be for the sidebar to SLIDE OVER the existing interface, and then immediately slide away when we switch views. That makes sense.

And yes, it looks like Shift-Command-K toggles the new sidebar open & closed.

[ScottWorld]

Justin_Barrett:

the feedback I saw in that other thread seemed to be mixed

p.s. Where is the other thread?

[Jeri_Vespoli]

Agree! It requires more clicks - which adds time and frustration. No only is it an annoying distraction from the view that you have to click to close when you open a base, every time you want to switch a view, you have to click twice - once to find it, and once to get rid of the view display. UGH. Not a friendly UI at all. PLEASE, Airtable, get rid of this - or at least provide an option to change settings to auto-off and auto-close. A scroll over to open and auto close would be much better. And one vote from me for the old dropdown - maybe I just got used to it, but I though it was cleaner and more intuitive.

[Pedro_Miszewski]

+1! It’s annoying having to close it every time

[ScottWorld]

Jeri_Vespoli:

No only is it an annoying distraction from the view that you have to click to close when you open a base, every time you want to switch a view, you have to click twice - once to find it, and once to get rid of the view display

Yep, I tried to use this new sidebar all night long, and it was just a really undesirable & unlikeable experience.

[Olpy_Acaflo]

ScottWorld:

p.s. Where is the other thread?

Here’s the Other Thread I started into VIEW-Topic where this sidebar’s reviews are mixed.

oLπ

[ScottWorld]

@Olpy_Acaflo Thank you! This is what I posted over there:

After trying to use the new view sidebar all night long, I now find it intrusive, unwieldy, disconcerting, and a terrible use of screen real estate. I discuss my thoughts in full detail in that other thread.

I believe that it is a highly unusable design decision that slows us down due to too many clicks, continuously gets in the way, and makes it way more difficult to use our systems because the entire base is constantly shifting left & right to accommodate the sidebar.

Not user-friendly nor enjoyable at all.

[Britt_Myers]

Yes! It should slide over it.

[Kamille_Parks]

I like it (apart from it being always on, and not remembering closed states between sessions), but then again I have a wide screen. It isn’t ideal for smaller screens, and AT should be a pleasant experience on both.

Since this is an experimental addition, they should try the slide out from the left like an overlay without pushing the table’s position in view. That might make a good middle man between the test version we’re seeing and the original views switcher.

[Britt_Myers]

From Airtable support:

Thank you for your feedback. As a company, we’re always seeking to improve the product experience; the new view sidebar is an experimental product change that some (but not all) of our users have access to right now. Depending on the results of the experiment and customer feedback, we may either roll out this new view sidebar to all customers or revert back to the old view switcher.

If you have any more thoughts about this change, please let us know!

Take me out of this ridiculous experiment.

Their AB testing metrics will show my engagement is the same, but cannot show how every time I type command-shift-K, I now think about how much I dislike Airtable.