Description
Your use case
What would you like to do?
The bulk of the UI needs serious rethinking.
- There is so much wasted space. The word "Chats" does not need to take up a line entirely to itself until I scroll down.
- The word "Chats" is permanently glued to the top even when all you have in the list are Video Rooms, or something. "Chats", to me, implies "DMs" and not 'Rooms", so it's actually confusing to include in addition to wasting space.
- The filter bubbles occupy some of the most prime screen real estate and are something I will seldom use, in large part because it's faster to just scroll or use the search bar. The UI clearly takes cues from YouTube Music which has a similar problem.
- It is messy to throw DMs and Rooms together in the same jumbled list. You essentially have to filter the list with the bubble filters for any semblance of organization despite the fact that it wastes time. Per screenshots, the old app had dedicated tabs for DMs and Rooms. This makes a lot more sense to me and makes the app more viable as a pure messenger. Imagine having to use a filter bubble in your stock SMS app to get to your chats.
- I only have one Space so far, but unlike on the web version, it is not remotely clear to me how I would switch between Spaces; I'm just sort of dumped into my one Space with no ability to leave it, or even view anything about it. Multiple spaces seem fundamentally incompatible with this filter bubble navigation paradigm.
Why would you like to do it?
Bad UI is bad for attracting and retaining users. The app should be a joy to use. I am a new Element user; not someone who is simply used to the old Element app and biased against the Element X changes.
How would you like to achieve it?
The easiest way would probably be to revert to the UI from the old app for now, as it's substantially more usable, and perhaps tweak it from there. Even if it would require a lot of effort to do, at least you would have a specific design goal rather than having to reinvent something from scratch.
Have you considered any alternatives?
I will be using the old Element app for now and am thinking about just not bothering to switch rather than trying to get friends to follow me. If there are not changes to Element X at least being considered / roadmapped I will definitely find another option.
Additional context
No response
Are you willing to provide a PR?
No