CloudBees Product Navigation

CloudBees provides enterprise DevOps solutions by enabling developers with tools to deliver quality software while also providing management with equally powerful tools. The variety of products inherited diverse navigational structures which lowered user satisfaction. We were forcing the users to re-learn where things where in the most essential piece of the product: the navigation.

New products and features were being released at a quickened pace and CloudBees needed a plan for uniform product experience. The first step was navigation across the number of user interfaces.

tl;dr It doesn't matter how cool the product is if people can't figure out how to use it.

Many of the CloudBees products were built by different people and had different navigational features and functionalities. Some were purchased by CloudBees and had their own established structures. In discovering a universal structure, we went through enough iterations and established feature priorities so that no functionalities were sacrificed.

Each product, documentation, or marketing navigation is a variant of the core style. Within product, there are even a few more variants that still maintain uniformity, so we were able to find a 'win' from all angles.

CloudBees users are presented with the ability to switch between products. However, jumping from one product to another and having the entire navigational layout and functionality change is jarring; users were thinking they'd accidentally left the site. (Not great.)

With navigation variants such as top, side right, side left, and stacked navbars, we needed to make sure nothing was sacrificed or lost within our products. We worked with each product to fully understand the current nav, the needs not met, and improvements we could make. We also took this opportunity to align marketing and product styles.