It’s a while ago that I worked with Jenkins, I’ve always liked it exceptionally, it always was one of the top 3 tools I used and I promoted it whenever I had the chance to.
Now that I installed v2.363 I’m disappointed with the UI – a second time:
I always liked the idea of the drop-down menus next to the breadcrumbs reachable by always visible(!) ⯆. Now there are thin, harder to recognize > they are hidden and instead of one click I have to perform a hover, a move, a click. And the click targets change their position dynamically which is distracting. I’m sorry having to say that but that’s bad UX.
The same applies to drop-down menus next to Build Names.
The rotation of the > for page content next to the breadcrumbs is equally distracting. It’s called breadcrumbs for a reason: Find your way (back) easily without obstacles.
The colors, shapes and behaviour in general: Jenkins is not a consumer product, it’s a workhorse for DevOps, SREs, Developers, … to get the job done as efficient as possible. Being one of them I don’t need / I don’t want:
Rounded corners.
Menu items that hide/override/disable the browser’s default behaviour on links: link color and underline on hover.
Menu items with too much vertical space between each other: in both drop-down and sidebar menus.
Colors with low contrast (lightest gray on white), especially when having to wear glasses.
“Play” triangle arrows that have no fill but just thin borders.
Small font sizes in general, especially in Build Queue and Build Executors, and even when there’s plenty of empty screen space around (e.g. at Add description).
An Icon legend link that sends me to another page with oversized icons instead of showing a popup close to where the items of interest are: the builds’ list. Take a look at the inline help, e.g. for Build periodically → Schedule (The inline helps always have been one of my a favourite features. Thank universe they’re still there.)
– It’d be sufficient to mention the sentence “You can hover the mouse over the project’s icon for a more detailed explanation.” just once right before the weather icons on the legend page.
˅ and ˄ that don’t really expand/collapse but cause screen flicker due to page reload: Build Queue, … Executors, … History.
Check boxes that are about quadruple the size of Unicode’s ☐🗹.
Space-wasting vertical spacing of build settings and their sections. The font could be bigger with reduced spacing without increasing overall page length.
Action buttons in build settings that have no fill (or the same color as the background). They look like text fields just with darker border.
Controls/widgets change border colors when hovering over it and their borders flash when activating them: I follow my mouse cursor with my eyes hence I know what I’m hovering over or what I’m activating. I don’t need an extra dynamic indicator that I’m really there. A check mark (or none), an expanding list or the blinking text cursor in a text field is indication enough that I am where I wanted to go.
Low contrast font colors light gray on white for setting descriptions, e.g. in Execute shell → Environment filters
There is a black down-pointing triangle ▼ available as Unicode char that’s bigger (i.e. easier to recognize) than the one that’s used for drop-down list buttons atm. (The filter field in such drop-downs is great!)
The inline help icons were less distracting from catching a setting’s or section’s title when they were located rightmost instead of next to the title.
Indentation is enough to indicate a group of settings which belong to the setting immediately above. No need for a vertical line that just hangs around with no (visible) anchor.
Colors in the Build History page’s timeline: darker gray on a bit lighter gray.
– The tiny blue rectangle that indicates the current time inside the timeline: Can this be a dashed/dotted vertical line with the height of the timeline?
There are no Close buttons for the two (big) notification popups rightmost on the page header.
There’s (still) no link to the API page of an object on the page of an object if it has one. (Or is it and I don’t see it?) I have to go to the address bar and add “/api/” there. (Which is then described there.)
… something I didn’t detect yet …
I’ m disappointed, partly appalled, really.
UPDATE
Re the almost all just black (dark gray?) icons left of the sidebar menu items:
– The icons for Lockable Resources and Embeddable Build Status are masterpieces of icon art. The mixture with the 101-MS-Paint-simple ones in the same menu made me laugh. (Please don’t kill these for the sake of uniformism! Replace the simple ones with the classical. Or supply a Classic Theme.)
Project config: There’s General at the top and (just the word) Enabled with ☐/🗹 to the right of it. The tooltip tells me that this applies to the current project, not the General config settings. Project enabled 🗹 / Project disabled ☐ would be clearer.
Welcome back to the forum, @geri
Thank you for sharing your feedback regarding the new UI/UX in Jenkins.
I do appreciate your support for Jenkins and your dedication to using the tool to its fullest potential. While it may be too late for your specific feedback to be implemented in the current version, I’d like to invite you to participate in our User Experience SIG meetings to provide your feedback directly to some community members that implemented the design of the UI/UX.
I think the community’s goal is to create an experience that is as efficient and user-friendly as possible for all users. Your feedback will be valuable in helping achieve that goal, and I am grateful for your input. I understand that change can be challenging, and I want to assure you that the community is always working to improve Jenkins and address end users concerns.
Thank you again for your feedback and your continued support of Jenkins. I hope to see you at our next User Experience SIG meeting which happens to be today at 4PM UTC . Join Zoom Meeting
Thanks for sharing your feedback! I’m not sure if I can comment all points in your list so I start with some general comments.
I think the new UI changes in the latest LTS versions are a huge improvement, making Jenkins attractive again. But I also see that some of these changes are not ideal for everybody (please also see New UI, form spacing and poor usability):
Some layout changes are a matter of taste and should be part of the Jenkins theming engine.
Some changes are controversial and cannot be changed by a theme.
Some changes are not yet finished and need to be fixed in the future.
Plugins need to use the new concepts as well.
For 1., 3., 4. we currently have the problem that actually only a couple of Jenkins developers are left over and no new volunteers step up to actually help to make the user experience better. I also noticed this in my own plugins as well: nobody steps up to actually fix a problem anymore - even for simple one hour tasks.
For 2. I think it would make sense to either create an issue in Jira or bring the topic to the UX meeting. E.g.:
I always liked the idea of the drop-down menus next to the breadcrumbs reachable by always visible
and Embeddable Build Status 
are masterpieces of icon art. The mixture with the 101-MS-Paint-simple ones in the same menu made me laugh. (Please don’t kill these for the sake of uniformism! Replace the simple ones with the classical. Or supply a Classic Theme.)