> but why hide all of that useful navigation behind an ambiguous, easy to miss, unlabeled icon?
Few reasons:
1. After redesign its possible to use application without sidebar for most of day-to-day tasks. I personally use sidebar 2-3 times per day while using GitLab whole day. Keeping it hidden by default allow me to focus on context and save screen space (really valuable on small laptop)
2. Both sidebar and project navigation visible at same time confused a lot of users. For example user clicked on sidebar "Issues" while they believed it will take them to project issues page.
Few reasons:
1. After redesign its possible to use application without sidebar for most of day-to-day tasks. I personally use sidebar 2-3 times per day while using GitLab whole day. Keeping it hidden by default allow me to focus on context and save screen space (really valuable on small laptop)
2. Both sidebar and project navigation visible at same time confused a lot of users. For example user clicked on sidebar "Issues" while they believed it will take them to project issues page.