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Sharpspring side navigation
Leadership wanted a feature that allows users to see all functional tools on the platform

Role & contributions

I designed several mock-ups based on industry leading navigation and application presentation. Developed prototypes, designed icons, and iterated to final product.

Impact

The feature was met with mixed reviews by our users, including a major breaking interaction issue when hovering off the edge of the page and accidentally triggering the side navigation.

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Identifying the problem

We explored ways to have a simple interaction to open the side nav while still allowing users to interact with each page unobstructed.

We ended up deciding on two different options. The first, a click to open (wider) side navigation that always exposes icons and text of each option (shown in image above), and the second was a "hover sliver" popularized by apps like Jira, that allows multiple states of the side nave (hover, click to open, collapsed).

While this works for JIRA, it seemed to be less effective in our information-dense UI. Although we ultimately went with this option, I still believe the first option to be the optimal solution, and thus showcased it here.

Outcome
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Takeaways
Play
prototype
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