The First Round of UI Changes to Match Snyk's Design Language

It's been some time now since we've announced that Probely is now a Snyk Business, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a lot in the making this last couple of months.

If you now head over to Probely's App, you'll see that we're implementing a few changes in the user interface to mark the start of an underlying process that'll eventually lead to an integration of Probely into Snyk's AppSec portfolio.

Mind you, this is just phase 1 of a process that will take multiple iterations, but the changes are already starting to be quite noticeable:

As you can see, we've started moving things around, to start with. We'll quickly highlight what those are before going into the reasoning behind these changes:

1. We've moved the old 5 items we used to have at the top of the screen to a new side menu.

2. The side menu itself is now collapsible, to help save on that precious screen real estate. Here's what it looks like when collapsed:

3. The user menu and account settings have also made their way to the brand spanking new side menu.

4. Last but not least of the visible changes: we've changed colors, styles, text, and fonts to match Snyk's design language.

This is all part of our plan to integrate as seamlessly as possible with Snyk's AppSec platform. The interface needed a refresh, anyway, and this way we're going for overall cohesiveness with the rest of the family's look'n'feel.

Main Pros of the Changes?

1. Consistency Of User Experience. As we align with Snyk's design language and standards, we'll make sure that users won't feel like they're jumping through disjointed pieces of a larger puzzle. We believe new users will onboard more quickly, and existing Snyk users will be glad to know they can explore new platform capabilities without having to relearn a completely new interface. Things will be where they expect them to be -- and that's something we'll still be fine-tuning as we go. A consistent visual framework lowers the odds of confusion or misinterpretation.

2. An Opportunity To Clean Up, Unify, and Standardize. As products grow, sometimes new pieces, new capabilities that are added can clearly feel like they're add-ons plastered on top of previously existing functionality. They can start sticking out like a sore thumb. Style guides can become Frankenstein monsters as new elements that weren't part of the sheets were needed. It might have been years since the styles were first designed. Now would be a good time to clean up, to match up with Snyk's best design practices, and adhere to standards that might have evolved from years back.

3. The Shared Ethos Can Be Translated Into Shared Aesthetics. Both Probely and Snyk are developer-friendly by nature. The same principles that have guided the product design of both platforms will always be apparent throughout the user interface: there'll always be a focus on making the products accessible yet functional, easy to learn yet powerful, efficient yet usable.

4. A Refined Familiarity. We believe you won't lose track of the same functionality you had before, and that they'll be even handier now. Your "Dashboard", "Discovery", "Targets", "Findings", and "Scans" will be grouped together, so it's not like we're crazily hiding interface elements underneath esoteric nomenclature. Settings and user accounts will be close by, just separated because they're different layers of the interface that don't need to be cluttered snugly together.

5. Future Changes Will Still Be Smooth. And we'll keep everyone posted. This isn't a one-off, it's just the beginning of a strategic alignment that's having its first noticeable manifestations right now -- apart from the changes made to the logo in early November, that is.

We'll be constantly reassessing, and if we do move some things around... it'll be because it makes sense and will be useful for our users, which was always our focus.

The looks may be changing and, deep down, the product at its core is also changing: always for the better, we truly believe.

Thanks for staying with us!