Streamline Your AWS Console: A Complete Guide to Visual Customization and Account Management

Overview

In August 2025, AWS introduced the AWS User Experience Customization (UXC) capability, designed to help you tailor the AWS Management Console to your specific needs. This feature gives account administrators the power to modify UI components—starting with assigning a custom color to each AWS account for quick visual identification. Today, we're excited to announce an expansion of UXC that allows you to selectively display only the most relevant AWS Regions and services for your team members. By hiding unused Regions and services, you reduce cognitive load, eliminate unnecessary clicks and scrolling, and ultimately work faster and more efficiently. This guide walks you through the entire process of customizing your console experience: account colors, region visibility, and service visibility. Whether you're managing multiple accounts or trying to simplify your daily workflows, these settings will help you create a cleaner, more focused interface.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you meet the following requirements:

• An active AWS account with administrator permissions (or a role that allows you to modify account settings via the User Experience Customization feature).
• Access to the AWS Management Console via a web browser.
• Basic familiarity with navigating the AWS console (e.g., using the navigation bar, searching for services).

Note that these customizations only affect the visual display within the console. They do not restrict access via the AWS CLI, SDKs, APIs, or Amazon Q Developer. Permissions are still governed by your IAM policies.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Setting an Account Color

Assigning a color to your AWS account makes it easy to distinguish different accounts at a glance—for example, using orange for development, light blue for testing, and red for production. Here's how to set it:

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.
2. On the navigation bar, click your account name (top right). You'll see a menu where your current account color appears (if not set, it will show placeholder text).
3. Choose Account from the dropdown. The Account display settings page opens.
4. Under Account display settings, select your preferred color from the palette. Options include standard tones like red, orange, green, blue, and more.
5. Click Update to save the change. The navigation bar will immediately reflect the new color.

Tip: Use distinct colors for accounts in different environments. This visual cue helps you avoid accidental actions in production accounts.

2. Customizing Region Visibility

By default, all AWS Regions are visible in the Region selector. To reduce clutter and show only the Regions you actively use:

1. Click the gear icon (Settings) on the navigation bar, then select See all user settings.
2. If you have administrator privileges, you'll see a new Account settings tab in the unified settings interface. Click it.
3. In the Visible Regions section, click Edit.
4. Choose one of two options:
   • All available Regions – shows every AWS Region (default).
   • Select Regions – manually pick which Regions appear. Check or uncheck the boxes next to each Region name.
5. After making your selection, click Save changes.
6. Now, when you open the Region selector on the navigation bar, you'll only see the Regions you selected. Unselected Regions are hidden.

This setting is particularly useful for teams operating in only a few geographic areas—like us-east-1 and eu-west-1—preventing accidental resource launches in unintended Regions.

3. Customizing Service Visibility

Similarly, you can control which AWS services appear in the All services menu and search results:

1. From the same Account settings tab (reachable via gear icon > See all user settings > Account settings), locate the Visible Services section.
2. Click Edit. You'll see a list of AWS services, organized by categories such as Compute, Storage, Database, etc.
3. You can either search for a specific service by name, or browse categories. For quick access, use the Popular services category—it includes frequently used services like EC2, S3, Lambda, and IAM.
4. Check the boxes next to each service you want to appear in the console. Uncheck those you rarely use.
5. Click Save changes.

After saving, the All services menu on the navigation bar will show only your selected services. Additionally, when you type a service name in the search bar, autocomplete suggestions will be limited to your chosen services. This cleanup significantly reduces scrolling and helps you find the right service faster.

4. Combining Account Color, Region, and Service Customizations

You can apply all three customizations together to create a personalized console environment. For example, a finance team might assign a blue color to their billing account, show only us-east-1 and eu-west-1 Regions, and display only Cost Explorer, Budgets, and AWS Organizations. The unified settings page makes it easy to manage everything from one place.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Confusing visibility with permissions: Hiding a Region or service does not block access to it. Users can still interact with hidden Regions or services via CLI, SDK, or direct API calls. Visibility only affects the console UI.
• Forgetting to save changes: After editing either Region or service lists, always click Save changes. Exiting without saving will discard your selections.
• Not having admin rights: The Account settings tab only appears for users with administrator privileges. If you don't see it, contact your account admin to make the changes or assign the necessary permissions.
• Overlooking the impact on team members: These settings apply at the account level for all users of that AWS account (if you're an admin). Coordinate with your team before making changes to ensure everyone's workflow is considered.
• Setting account color but not Regions: Customizing one feature is helpful, but combining them provides the greatest benefit. Don't stop at just the color—take a few minutes to also trim the Regions and services list.

Summary

Customizing your AWS Management Console with account colors, region visibility, and service visibility transforms a generic interface into a streamlined workspace tailored to your needs. By following the steps in this guide, you can visually distinguish accounts, reduce clutter, and focus only on the tools you use most. Remember that these settings are purely cosmetic and do not affect security or permissions—always pair them with proper IAM policies for complete access control. Start with a single account, experiment with the options, and soon you'll wonder how you ever worked without them.