Zabbix Web Interface Design

[PavelA]

Hi all! This thread will be dedicated to UI/UX Design of Zabbix web interface. Constructive criticism, UI pain, suggestions and any interface related feedback are welcome here (screenshots are nice too). The goal is to better understand Zabbix users and make the web UI more efficient and user friendly.

[Colttt]

just for information, there still exist a feature request for this:

https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1363

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i wish a left side menue.
i also want to see values if do mousehover the graphs (https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1993)
also this: https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1332

[PavelA]

Thanks. Will check every issue you guys have with our current UI. The idea is to make a consistent user experience across the whole platform, so some specific features/improvements will probably undergo some prioritization. But your feedback will help us understand the bigger picture and how you guys are using Zabbix. At least at some level This thread is just one of the channels we'll be using continuously to make UX improvements.

[Colttt]

so, another wish, actually when i open a graph i see max, min and avg, but it would be nice to know when was max and min..

also take a look at PRTG-UI or PandoraFMS, most Manger, CEO, Chefs are like the fancy UI

[heaje]

Better widgets

I've found that while useful, the default dashboard widgets don't provide much flexibility. It would be great for users to be able to create/modify their own widgets. Perhaps something like a widget framework that the community could build stuff around and then easily apply to their own environments.

Along with this, the ability to add/remove widgets from the dashboard would be helpful (instead of "hiding" them).

[heaje]

It would be great if any user could create their own custom graphs and screens. The idea of requiring a user with admin access to make them for other users doesn't scale at all. It is impossible for an admin to know how 30 different users all want to look at data.

[PavelA]

Great, thanks. Please keep up with the comments, especially with the general things that you think are bad in terms of UI at the moment or cause you some extra effort to achieve your goal.

[dimir]

PavelA is new Zabbix UI designer. Please welcome. :-) Currently he is working on filters. Now is the perfect time to share your ideas on filters.

[volter]

Hello PavelA!

When it comes to filters (and sorting), there's a number of tickets, as you sure have noticed. Besides the absence of filters in some places and more powerful filters in some places, but not in others, their implementation also varies. With the absence of a general filter class (let alone hosts and groups), it's fairly difficult to create your own.

I assume you first want to focus on creating or implementing some kind of framework. When it comes to places that would benefit from new or improved filters, I would particularly like to highlight:

• https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-410 [#ZBXNEXT-410] Add more filters to the Events page
• https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1456 [#ZBXNEXT-1456] ability to filter for discovered items

pidzero wrote patches for filtering triggers (ZBXNEXT-221) and actions (ZBXNEXT-14), which both have no filter at all! Filtering by proxies (ZBXNEXT-1456) is also useful. Filtering by value on latest data (ZBXNEXT-1810) is also very useful for me.

I think people still agree that the filter is kind of hard to notice, if collapsed.

[PavelA]

Yes, show/hide button's visibility is a known issue.
We will work towards establishing a more strategic/long term approach to interface design (I wish ) Implementing some kind of a framework might be a step into the right direction, but it's a more technical thing.

As a side note: more focus on pure interface/usability/general thoughts on the aesthetics of our current design would be great. That's the main idea of this thread -- to start a dialogue on design with you, real users. I understand that not yet implemented technical feature requests are important as well, but it's in jira

[heaje]

Here's a patch that I can't live without because it addresses a major annoyance with navigating between multiple graphs for comparison:

https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1061 - Ability to switch items in simple graphs, but keep the temporal settings

This single patch alone saves me lots of headache (which is why I ported it to Zabbix 2.4.2)

[PavelA]

History navigation

Hey guys,

Would like to know your thoughts on the history navigation bar below the main navigation.

1. What are your use cases?
2. When is it useful for you and why?
3. Why do you think it was implemented?

Remember, there are no wrong or right answers, we are not testing your knowledge Just say what's on your mind. Thanks

[BDiE8VNy]

This is now quite unstructured just as it comes to my mind (I intentionally avoided to suggest possible solutions or existing Jira tickets):

Too many hyper-links spread over the whole views, where one often can't see but have to know what is behind.

Depending on the context, following a date hyper-link might get you to Triggers, Events, Event details.... Trigger name hyper-links might open the Trigger URL, Trigger menu, .... Host hyper-links might open the Host menu, bring you back to Latest data, ...

The complain is not about reducing options provided by hyper-links, I actually think there could be even more. But the concept how these options are presented has to be dramatically improved.

Sometimes when following a hyper-link which opens a view where one has to apply/confirm/cancel something, then one is not taken back where one was coming from.

After years of constantly working with the Zabbix frontend, I think I was able to master it. But every user here at my site is lost in how to get what Zabbix might provide.

It should be possible to get most out of Zabbix even when not being a power user.
To me Zabbix is all about options, but no regular user of a NMS can keep all of these in mind. Beside a good frontend concept it might be valuable to have a kind of "real" online help.

There is no way to get the right hint/help/documentation without knowing where to find it. Neither external nor embedded.

Some options like filters are hidden. Others like combo-boxes/buttons might be overlooked because not being in the visual focus.

In a lot of tables there is way too much information that may lead to wrapping lines or exceeding the screen. At the end almost every view in the frontend is overwhelming to users. Again, there might possibly be even more information available here and there, but the presentation needs to be more stream-lined

[PavelA]

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that one of the main goals for us would be to make the frontend more simple to use. And by "simple" I mean a more convenient and effective UI while we'll be further improving and extending the functional part.
Online documentation and help... Yes, online help should be more contextual -- the right info at the right moment. So, there is a lot of stuff that we know about that needs improvement and we will work towards this goal. Your feedback is very valuable at this stage.

[PavelA]

To BDiE8VNy:
Maybe you could list some real examples that you find especially frustrating? That would be very helpful from your side. Thanks!