GitLab Canary should be clearly distinguishable from GitLab Production for all users
Problem to solve
The GitLab Canary environment is a very important step in our release process.
However, it’s also very important that, as users, we know whether we’re using Canary or the main Production environment (since both using https://gitlab.com now). Currently, this is done with a change to the favicon for the page. This is however not accessible to for example colorblind users.
We rely too heavily on just color for meaning/distinction here.
Intended users
Release Managers & Production Engineers (internal customer)
Further details
Proposal
For comparison, Gitter uses a little green tag pinned to the top of the page to notify users of whether they're using Canary (known as Next) or Production:
Solution
- Officially name this as GitLab
next
which does not confuse it with canary deployment features within GitLab. - A simple badge is introduced next to the logo which is also visible on mobile.
- For switching between normal and canary functionality
- An additional link towards next.GitLab.com is introduced in the help menu
- This link will only be visible when viewing projects on which GitLab
next
applies - If
next
is turned off, the badge will simply not show
header | header |
---|---|
Desktop | |
Mobile | |
Help menu option |
Permissions and Security
Documentation
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
Links / references
Edited by Dimitrie Hoekstra