Design guidelines for cell action popover

[l-suarez]

Problem to solve

Originally, this menu was designed primarily for Filter in / Filter out actions and was not intended to support additional links or extension points. Given the recent updates, the layout now appears somewhat off-balance when additional actions are appended to the popover, as they are visually similar but lack a clear visual hierarchy. We believe that refining the design guidelines will ensure a more cohesive user experience as more teams begin to use this component with extended functionality.

Goals

The goal is to develop design guidelines that:

• Establish a clear visual distinction between required actions ("Filter In" and "Filter Out") and other appended actions.
• Ensure consistency and usability across all instances of the action cell popover within Kibana.
• Allow flexibility for teams to add new actions while maintaining a clear, unified layout.

Action points

• Review current action cell popover layout and identify areas of improvement.
• Explore options for visual hierarchy, such as using separators, iconography, groupings.
• Develop mockups to illustrate proposed design improvements.
• Compile guidelines that detail how to handle primary actions vs. additional actions.
• Document the guidelines for future reference and team alignment.

[davismcphee]

@l-suarez @ryankeairns Just a couple of things to consider when thinking about this issue:

The current cell actions display is a part of EUI data grid, and not something specific to Discover: We do have a way to completely customize popover cell rendering, but it's worth considering if proposed changes here should be done at the EUI level for consistency across Kibana data grid usages.

Establish a clear visual distinction between required actions ("Filter In" and "Filter Out") and other appended actions.

EUI data grid doesn't currently distinguish between concepts like primary vs additional actions, although we have some level of control over the action rendering. We may be able to do something just at the Discover level here, but it could also be worth considering how this idea fits into the broader design system at the EUI level too.

Another thing to remember when considering designs for this is that some columns don't support filter in/out, depending on the field type. So we should make sure to plan for what the actions should looks like when the primary actions are available and when they're unavailable.

[ryankeairns]

+1 @davismcphee the guidelines - noted in the Action points - will be paramount given the flexibility and desire to provide some level of consistency. We may even start with those and share early for alignment.