Feedback on WHM UI changes in 76

[PCZero]

OK I just "upgraded" to v 76 and it is HORRIBLE. A HUGE step backwards.
In v74 I was able to hide the left hand navigation list and use the icons on the home to screen to navigate my way through WHM. It was easy to click through to find what I needed starting with the full list of icons CLEANLY displayed on the home screen. The icosn were laid out cleanly with a brief title for each.

In v76 the home screen has been messed up terrible. Now only a small portion of the icons are displayed, they are broken into two groups, there are group titles (100% unnecessary, just clutter) and lengthy narratives under each of the very few icons that remain (more clutter) and I have to turn back on the left navigation pane, hunt through it and hopefully find any other links I want to use. TERRIBLE DESIGN, TERRIBLE CONCEPT, USELESS MAIN HOME UI!

Please tell me how to reestablish my home screen so that all icos are there like it should be.

I have no idea who in the hell actually thought this was a better UI but whoever it was that designed and approved this should be fired immediately and never allowed to code a UI again.

 

[PCZero]

So how long are we stuck with this totally useless new home UI? Who in their right mind would reduce the usability of the main UI of a control panel and make it more difficult to use the product? I though upgrades were supposed to make things easier, not harder.

In this new version

1) I have to turn back on the left hand navigation
2) Look through that long list of text links to find one that I think might house the command I am looking for
3) Expand that link into a sub set of icons on the right.
4) Look for through the icons to see if the one I am looking for is there.
5) Close that link and then click another repeating 3 & 4.
6) Eventually find the command I am looking for.

With the new layout, the whole process of recoding the UI so that the left hand navigation pane is invisible was wasted effort as with the way it is now you HAVE TO have the LHS turned on in order to do anything. You guys obviously did not think this through at all, nor did you consider the limitations you just put on anyone who is an ADA customer with vision issues. This new UI makes it so much more difficult to use my servers that I may have no other choice than to get a new software package from a competitor. My only other choice is to revert to v74. PLEASE tell me what my path is to revert. Is reprovisioning the severs my only option?

 

[PCZero]

OK how do I revert my servers to v74. The new UI on v76 is such a huge step backwards and causes me to have to click through so many more levels to get anything done that it is unusable for me. VERY poor redesign and not very well thought through. Since when is reducing usability and causing me MORE work an upgrade?

Need help with this please. I absolutely 100% cannot use this severely limited and and much more cluttered up home screen version of your product.

 

[PCZero]

Sorry folks I had to vote NO. My vote is to bring back the FAR superior clean icon based home UI. Add the icons back in. get rid of the grouping, get rid of the group titles, get rid of the long descriptions. Just give me back a VERY clean and simple to use list of icons. Voting YES to the suggestion at hand would be supportive of the new (crippled and messy) layout. I do appreciate the underlying concept of the request, but without the ability to get back to a clean ungrouped layout without the extraneous run-on descriptions like v74 had, the request is of no use.

 

[PCZero]

Michael thank you for the reply. I appreciate that a lot of time effort and money went into the development of v76 of WHM, however I very much believe it is a huge step backward and vastly reduces usability for server owners.

The new layout of the v76 (RHS) window was very poorly thought out. Removing almost all of the icons makes the ability to hide the LHS navigation moot. Why go through all the coding time and expense to add that feature of displaying the LHS is now REQUIRED to do ANY server maintenance at all? I understand that some might prefer an expanding and contracting animated menu navigation system over a much simpler icon click, but at the same time it does require extra steps to get anything accomplished and is much more difficult to use for those of us who are visually impaired.

Lets compare the steps to perform task (especially those other than those few icons left) for those of us who use the hide LHS feature and use only the MUCH simpler icons.

v74 - Click icon - perform task

v76 - Click to display LHS - Try to figure out where the task we want to perform is listed in the LHS menu system - Expand/Contarct the LHS until we get it right - Find the link to perform the task we want to perform - perform task - collapse LHS navigation - hide LHS.

How in the world is v76 better than v74?

Then once v76 pared down the icons on the RHS they got grouped and added extraneous titles to the section and long drawn out descriptons to each icon taking up the valuable space where the remaining icons should be. With the icons clutter amongst a mass of text it is much more difficult to see them and find the oen you are looking for. So not only did v76 reduce the usability at the home screen, it muddled it up masking it very messy and even harder to use.

Top that all with no warning that v76 had such a dramatic change of UI and a no way to revert policy and you have a recipe for a total disaster which, IMHO, is what has occurred.

I would love to get a new server and do a transfer however I am grandfathered into an amazing price for the server in question and getting a new one would cost me an additional $100 - $200 a month.

The cPanel team has often referred to the icon layout as a 'sea of icons' with the implication that it is an undesirable UI. On the contrary, a single screen of icons is actually a much simpler UI. You do not have scrolling, animated, expanding/collapsing menu system where you have to hunt for what you need. Of course you can try a search and see if you are lucy enough to guess the correct search terms teh programemrs used. Even then you still have that expanding/collapsing animated menu system to deal with.


Oh well I have expressed my views and total dismay at the way this version was rolled out. How long will it be that we are stuck with the severely crippled main UI before we see some improvements to make it usable to at lease a limited degree?

 

[GTMAN]

?Is there any screenshots of the new UI?

 

[black_horse]

I absolutely agree with this. I have severe vision problems and in my 95' 800x600 screen i can barely get 1 or 2 icons going with 200% screen zoom. UI design is messed up nowadays, I can still remember when Windows 95 UI nailed it in this aspect, as the desktop perfectly fit in my screen.

I've tried upgrading my monitor to a big crt tv I still keep in my garage, but it weights too much for me too move to the datacenter that I have behind the kitchen, so I'm stuck with this predicament. Guess it's time to wait for a revert to old form.

And now that we are talking about this: is there any plans to improve the responsive design of the panel? it is quite unusable on my Nokia 3310, even after removing its outer shell to have a bit of extra screen size.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello Everyone,

First, thanks to everyone that's provided feedback on this thread. It's highly valuable to understand the perspective of individual users and/or hosting companies anytime we make changes to the product.

We're currently collecting feedback on this change as part of internal case CPANEL-23788. I've shared this forums thread to the case to ensure all of feedback here is considered. While there's no information to report in terms of potential changes at this time, I'll be sure to monitor the case and update this thread with any new information as it becomes available.

Please continue to leave any feedback on this topic here on this thread.

Thank you.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello @PCZero,

Regarding your question about downgrading to an earlier cPanel & WHM version, this is not possible. We note this in our documentation at:

Product Versions and the Release Process - cPanel Knowledge Base - cPanel Documentation

If you absolutely must downgrade, the best approach would be to setup a new server running an earlier version of cPanel & WHM, and then migrate the accounts to the server using WHM >> Transfer Tool. We're happy to help guide you through that process if you need any help doing so.

Thank you.

 

[sparek-3]

I'll add my 2 cents here - but I'll start with I'm not using cPanel 76 and don't really know what UI changes that are being referred to here.

But to me, this seems to be a broader issue. Were any of these issues or concerns caught when cPanel 76 was in CURRENT? That seems to be a real issue with cPanel these days. I know most people use RELEASE or STABLE - and more people means more feedback, but does anybody use CURRENT? Or is CURRENT used only by yes-men?

Not sure what the answer is. But it just seems to me that there's not enough feedback happening in CURRENT (or EDGE) and its taking until these cPanel versions hit RELEASE before any issues or concerns pop up. Maybe that's the way it is intended. Maybe users like PCZero need to switch to using STABLE. Begs the question of what is the point of CURRENT?

This would seem to be something that cPanel might want to look into and reconsider their structure.

 

[GBLIX]

Well, i have to agree, this new home WHM screen is worse than the old one.

I guess the better alternative is let the user chose what to show on that screen or even chose witch (old or new) mode we wanna use.

 

[PCZero]

In future upgrades that involve a major change of the main UI I highly suggest that a screen shot of the new UI be displayed at the beginning of the process and before the upgrades proceeds require the user to accept the new layout.

 

[PCZero]

OK this one is kind of minor, but I am an attention to detail kind of person (other than my horrid typing). On the very pared down main UI home screen there is a button titled "View All Features". That buttons does NOT view all features. View all features would repopulate that screen with all of the icons. What that button does is display the LHS navigation menu. The button should be titled "Expand Menu" as this is what it really does.

 

[ronaldst]

I recently updated to version 76.

I have always used the left side menu to navigate, for most tasks anyway. Therefor the new UI doesn't bring that many changes to my habit of administrating WHM.

However, I do agree that the selection of options given on the "welcome/start" screen is limited, and seem rushed or lacking at best.

I agree that the large icons+descriptions bring unecessary clutter. The descriptions are clearly not needed, everyone can imagine what the "Create new account" or "List Accounts" -option does.

If the welcome screen is supposed to be an alternative to navigating the main menu, it's clearly lacking important features.

My question is, what is the real purpose of the welcome screen? Is it supposed to be an alternative to the main menu? You could argue the old UI was, but the new UI have made it into a "selection of often used functions".

Even at that it is lacking. If it's supposed to be often used functions or features, why isn't any of the Security Center options in that list? What about managing email? The list could go on.

Now I think for anyone to make a suggestion going forward, you would need to decide what is going to be the purpose of that welcome screen. Is it a place to put stuff often used, an alternative navigation menu, or something totally different?

So when that's said, this is where I want to suggest something totally different (shoot me now!).

I would rather see important server info on that welcome screen. Show me status of Apache, DNS Clusters, diskspace, cpu usage graphs, memory usage, mysql.. whatever I need to know to get a quick overview of how the server is running.

That's what I would put there anyway. In current state, it provides nothing useful in terms of how I use WHM.

 

[rpvw]

shoot me now!

BANG !!

The real issue is that everyone will want different hotlinks on their welcome screen so we can go through the process of every cPanel admin chipping in with their personal requirements, or we can go back to displaying everything, or we should (in my opinion) be working towards an end user customisable interface allowing the admin to place whatever he wants rapid access to; on the welcome screen.

@linux4me2 submitted a feature request to that end Customizeable WHM Home Screen , and I urge everyone to vote for it (I can't imagine why anyone would think this is a bad idea and downvote it, but they have )

 

[ronaldst]

I do not mind the user being able to customize the welcome screen, but do we really need navigation on that page?

The suggestion you are linking to, suggest to make it customizable in terms of categories and links.

If that's the direction to go, maybe it's better to revert and show all categories like it used to?

 

[rpvw]

We are back to individual preferences !

You state that you always use the left side menu to navigate, and therefore the new layout doesn't bother you much operationally.

I hardly ever use the left side menu to navigate and prefer clicking on an icon on the body of the screen, and I find having to use the left menu both cumbersome and irritating. That doesn't mean I use all the icons on a regular basis, so I should like the facility to place just the ones I want for normal day-to-day operations in the body of the page.

Your suggestion about displaying statistics does have merits. I wonder if cPanel might like to think about having multiple (selectable) home pages eg
1:everything as before
2:admin selectable statistics
3:admin selectable links
etc

Or if the page could be made to be sophisticated enough to display real time statistics AND navigation icons in whatever layout the admin chose. Perhaps if the page was divided into a matrix of columns and rows, and stuff could be dropped and dragged around (like a more elegant and sophisticated version of the WordPress admin home page?)

I'm going to stop now before I get into trouble with the team that might get tasked with coding this

 

[LoadFactor]

I appreciate efforts to simplify the WHM UX for new users, but cPanel has a long history of implementing design changes and then having to accommodate people who resist change (hello Paper Lantern Retro). I'm surprised that such a significant interface has been changed so radically with no accommodation for existing users. When the heck will you folks start to learn from past experience?

Personally, I've long navigated via the left menu. I don't have a huge issue with the changes, although I do prefer the old interface. However I expect a flood of protest from resellers, many of whom have deliberately kept their cPanel interfaces looking like x3 with the retro theme. Frankly, your UX has never been stellar, but it has been functional. You should consider that once people have gone to the trouble of adapting to it, they've made enough of an investment that making arbitrary changes to it will likely not be welcome.

A lot of resellers don't need to go into WHM too often. Now when they do they will be completely lost, and we'll get protests and tickets. We're doing preemptive mailings to give our resellers forewarning, and to fully lay the blame on cPanel.

There should be:

1) a way to revert to the "sea of icons", or at least one of these lovely descriptive buttons should let users navigate to something resembling the old interface.
2) A way, either system wide but preferably at the user level to shut all the descriptions down and return to a more compact presentation.

As others have said, it seems that someone decides to make these sorts of changes and never runs them through testing with honest to goodness users before rolling them out into production. It also seems that lubricating the experience for users who are completely new to cPanel is given more importance than the needs of your existing user base. In an environment where there's been so much consolidation of commercial control panel vendors and in the face of increasing sophistication of open source alternatives, discounting the value of your existing user base might be less than wise.

 

[PCZero]

I recently updated to version 76.

I have always used the left side menu to navigate, for most tasks anyway. Therefor the new UI doesn't bring that many changes to my habit of administrating WHM.

However, I do agree that the selection of options given on the "welcome/start" screen is limited, and seem rushed or lacking at best.

I agree that the large icons+descriptions bring unecessary clutter. The descriptions are clearly not needed, everyone can imagine what the "Create new account" or "List Accounts" -option does.

If the welcome screen is supposed to be an alternative to navigating the main menu, it's clearly lacking important features.

My question is, what is the real purpose of the welcome screen? Is it supposed to be an alternative to the main menu? You could argue the old UI was, but the new UI have made it into a "selection of often used functions".

Even at that it is lacking. If it's supposed to be often used functions or features, why isn't any of the Security Center options in that list? What about managing email? The list could go on.

Now I think for anyone to make a suggestion going forward, you would need to decide what is going to be the purpose of that welcome screen. Is it a place to put stuff often used, an alternative navigation menu, or something totally different?

So when that's said, this is where I want to suggest something totally different (shoot me now!).

I would rather see important server info on that welcome screen. Show me status of Apache, DNS Clusters, diskspace, cpu usage graphs, memory usage, mysql.. whatever I need to know to get a quick overview of how the server is running.

That's what I would put there anyway. In current state, it provides nothing useful in terms of how I use WHM.

The main UI is not and should not be a "welcome screen". If you need to see stats or metrics, there is (was an icon right on the main RHS for that. "Welcome screens" are in general a waste and a poor program design. The way v74 had things, the entire cPanel was very easy to use. Hide that lame LHS navigation menu with all of its expand/collapse animations and use the very clean and simple field of icons. No animations, no sliding expanding menu system. No hunting for what you needed, and no grouped icons with long descriptions for each icon (like we do not know what List Accounts does without all that extraneous text taking up space where the rest of the icons should be).

Face it, the new main RHS is a total failure and a huge step backward in being a user friendly UI. Further it renders all of the recent effort put into splitting the LHS and RHS as well as adding the ability to toggle off the LHS all a complete waste of time and resources.

 

[Metro2]

I'm sorry to say, but I hate the new UI. I miss the icons. I miss being able to immediately click Plugins > ConfigServer Firewall instead of having to type in the upper left search box or scroll the list. Especially on mobile in urgent situations when I'm not near a workstation and need to get in right away / quickly get right to something.