Severe UX Degradation in the New AWS Access Portal (IAM Identity Center)

Question

To the AWS Identity/UX Team,

I am writing to express my strong dissatisfaction with the recent UI redesign of the AWS Access Portal. Frankly, the ergonomics of the new layout are horrible and have noticeably disrupted our daily workflow.
The primary issue is the way account expansion and role selections are handled. Forcing users to click on tiny, poorly placed symbols just to open role selections or copy access keys is a massive step backward in usability.

Key Usability Issues:
    Microscopic Click Targets: The dropdown arrows and "Access keys" symbols are far too small. This requires excessive mouse precision (violating basic UX principles like Fitts's Law) and leads to constant, frustrating misclicks.
    Severe Workflow Friction: For engineers managing dozens of production and non-production accounts, hunting for a tiny 10-pixel icon to log in or grab credentials adds unnecessary friction to an action we perform dozens of times a day.
    Poor Ergonomics: The UI leaves massive amounts of empty whitespace on the screen, yet cramps the most important interactive elements into tiny, hard-to-click hitboxes.

Required Improvements:
    Make the entire account row clickable to expand or collapse the role list, rather than relying solely on the tiny caret icon.
    Increase the size, padding, and visibility of the role selection links and the "Access keys" copy buttons.

Please escalate this to your UI/UX product team. A portal designed for quick access should not require sniper-like precision just to select a basic IAM role.

re:Post Agent · Accepted Answer

I understand your frustration with the AWS access portal interface. While I can't directly escalate UI feedback or make changes to the portal design, I can help you understand the intended workflow and suggest ways to provide your feedback to the right team.

The AWS access portal is designed to provide single sign-on access where users sign in with their directory credentials, select their AWS account from the Accounts tab, and then choose from their assigned permission sets (which appear as available roles). For command line or programmatic access, users can retrieve temporary credentials by choosing the "Access keys" option.

For your specific concerns about the interface design, I strongly recommend submitting this feedback through the official AWS channels:

**Submit feedback directly through the AWS Console**: Look for the "Feedback" button typically located in the lower-left corner of the AWS Management Console or access portal interface.

**Contact AWS Support**: If you have an AWS Support plan, you can open a case specifically about this user experience issue. Support can ensure your feedback reaches the product team.

**Use the AWS Forums**: Post in the AWS re:Post community where AWS service teams actively monitor customer feedback.

Your detailed observations about click target sizes, workflow friction, and ergonomic issues are exactly the kind of specific, actionable feedback that product teams need to improve their services. Including concrete suggestions like making entire rows clickable and increasing button sizes will help the team understand the impact on your daily operations.

For immediate workflow improvements, you might also consider using the AWS CLI v2 with IAM Identity Center integration, which allows you to create CLI profiles linked to your accounts and roles, automatically handling credential retrieval and refresh without needing to interact with the portal interface repeatedly throughout the day.  
**Sources**  
[Configure access to AWS accounts - AWS IAM Identity Center](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/manage-your-accounts.html)  
[SEC02-BP02 Use temporary credentials - AWS Well-Architected Framework (2022-03-31)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/2022-03-31/framework/sec_identities_unique.html)

Severe UX Degradation in the New AWS Access Portal (IAM Identity Center)

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