Improve webapps navigation UI

[Alexandre Abreu]

There have been some discussions and reports from user about the navigation UI in general around its current posibly inconvenient state (when enabled). The amount of real estate that it takes, and the somewhat inconvenient way that it gets revealed could possibly be improved or at least thought about.

ogra's g+ webapp is often referred to when talking about an alternative UI for navigation. It might be interesting to pull some of the ideas displayed there (see screenshot) and update the UI.

[Alexandre Abreu (abreu-alexandre)]

Adding ubuntu-ux to put this in design's backlog

[James Mulholland (jamesmulholland)]

My understanding is that the current web-app navigation UI was intended to be aligned as closely as possible with the browser:
(https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IpCWtWuGPES5llwmoscawhn2IG4fxOggMO8F_RM_zms/edit)

Using radial menus on the bottom edge has the potential to introduce its own disadvantages, so may not be a 'quick-fix' to this;
- the introduction of additional steps to navigating (the first of which is an edge-gesture)
- making navigation less immediately discoverable
- discouraging the use of the bottom-edge by developers for anything else if the expectation becomes 'that's where navigation occurs' (when we typically encourage that the bottom-edge be used for the most critical/interesting/exciting action available)
- etc.

Could you provide the reports you mentioned and/ or some illustration (e.g. screenshots) of the problem you're describing to help us understand the issue? The hide/ reveal Navigation UI pattern that is used by web-apps has long been present in the browser, scopes, contacts & telephony, etc - Just about anything with a 'header' (see comparative screenshots below).