Briefly describe (1-2 sentences) the Bug you’re experiencing:
The lack of a simple bug reporting / feedback button in Asana seems to show a general disregard for your users time.
Steps to reproduce:
It is utterly ridiculous to expect your users to have to dig through your entire interface, looking for anything related to feedback, support, or bug reporting, eventually finding only:
My Profile Settings… > Hacks > Share feedback
This took me to the following discussion:
“Inbox - Disable notifications for tasks due today”
<forum.asana-dot-com/t/inbox-disable-notifications-for-tasks-due-today/2189>
Within:
Product Feedback > Features Launched
The Product Feedback (Topic/Category) took me to:
<forum.asana-dot-com/c/productfeedback/20>
Where I was greeted with:
Welcome to the Asana Community Forum!
Here are some resources you might find useful:
- Community Forum Guidelines
- Asana Guide
- Asana Release Notes
- Report a bug (English only)
- Follow our Announcements category…
Click here to visit our International Forums:
Latest Announcements: …
From there, I clicked on:
Report a bug (English only)
Where I got:
“How to report a Bug” where Marie, the Community Program Manager had left these instructions:
"Dear Forum Members,
"Something isn’t working in Asana and you suspect you’re running into a Bug? Simply follow the steps below:
"1. Access the “Report a Bug” subcategory
“2. Create a new thread in this Category and fill out all sections included in the description.”
Okay, now at this point I’ve had to spend (Waste!!) way too much time hunting down anything useful, clicking through dozens of times to get though multiple screens for something that honestly should never take more than 1-3 quick clicks at the most (e.g. Menu > Help > Send Feedback).
But, never mind that, let’s press on…
I note on this page (as I ended up coming back to it several times while I kept trying to figure out how the heck you thought this would be straight forward or useful, which I’ll assume you had, but somehow either no one was willing to tell you how bad it was, you weren’t allowed to do anything better, maybe due to some misguided interpretation of your basic philosophy/function, or frankly, sometimes people already have their mind made up and just are not willing to listen no matter how much their customers would like them to succeed.):
- This topic is closed
- There are no other instructions, or obvious reasons why we need to go down another level (although going to the “topic page” from this “introduction”(?) by clicking on the Bug Topic in the upper left, gives enough information to discover other follow-up categories)
- The “Report a Bug” subcategory seems to have 878 “topics”(?)
However, clicking on:
“Report a Bug” subcategory
<forum.asana-dot-com/c/bugs/report-a-bug>
did not take me to anywhere useful.
At this point, I’ve had to “discover” (hunt down) The “Bugs” topic which then had instructions and a link going to the “Report” thread, but that thread seems to be closed, non-operational, or something.
Once there, I saw N O T H I N G , Nada, Zip, Zilch, Nill, as far as any form of useful button, link, or other feature that would enable me to complete what is the necessary and essential task of simply giving you a heads up that something was amiss, missing, or might be improved.
Eventually, since there was literally nothing else to try, I clicked on the New Topic link at the bottom, but that seemed to take me somewhere else.
So, instead of having the usual feedback form, you’ve chosen to use your Forums system, which is a significant problem as it can create a great deal of friction for users. In my case, I seem to have been led on a bit of a wild goose chase…
After having now spent 75 minutes, getting this far and writing up this report, I am strongly considering that my time may be better invested in finding a replacement product and convincing my company to switch products, as this utter lack of basic functionality seems to betray your fundamental value proposition.
To be clear, I am first and foremost using your product to be productive solving problems, contributing to our team, and ultimately creating value for our customers. Perhaps in your world you would prefer to use customers and investors time and resources to play games first and maybe end up being productive as an afterthought? I’d hope not, but cannot say otherwise after this experience.
To be clear, having a Suggestion Box that is reliable and easy to access is fundamental to playing in any business field. If we can’t talk to you, we’ll end up talking about you in order to find a replacement. Not addressing this immediately, is akin to telling investors that you’re happy to throw their money away by:
- Frustrating customers so that their cost of acquisition is wasted
- Converting customer advocates into antagonists
- Creating a wellspring of well-thought-out ideas and actionable deliverables that end up being directed at anyone but you (since you “obviously don’t care to listen”, which then fuel and inspire others to replace you
- Seriously, I strongly recommend that you avoid falling into this trap as it’s filled with poison.
Now that we’ve gone through all that, I see that clicking on that last link takes me to a new page that I haven’t seen before. Apparently, your forum sight was having issues, which is no excuse unless you, at a bare minimum, want to at least bother telling users that you are doing maintenance or something.
Nevertheless, even if your site had been working, I’d still be at least 30+ minutes into deep concern and frustration. And wait, it gets better.
So, finally having arrived at:
<forum.asana-dot-com/c/bugs/report-a-bug>
I now see, the pinned instructions, followed by two topics. The first two items are in gray text for some unknown reason, but no biggy.
Below this, at the bottom, I see the text:
“There are no more Report a Bug topics. {Why not create a topic?}”
<forum.asana-dot-com/c/bugs/report-a-bug>
(Note: On the page, the above link activates JavaScript, but when copied, just points to the page URL as a soft fallback.)
However, before clicking on that lets “do the right thing” and try reading the directions… except you can’t without clicking the “read more” link after the brief text snippet.
Now, upon doing so:
- Yes, I am able to read the instructions, but
- I am no longer able to create a [bug reporting] topic
- Seriously! Did no one test this? Or are you assuming that we’re all so enamored with your user forum that we’re somehow inclined to spend copious amounts of time there figuring out its eccentricities? (To be clear, user forums are Awesome, and a clear and proven market differentiator. In every market category I have ever seen, active forums pay back several multiples of the investment required. Nevertheless, that can quickly be undermined when they are not well implemented and/or used for purposes for which they are not well suited.)
A quick note on your instructions from this page:
Re: “Something isn’t working in Asana and you suspect you’re running into a Bug? Simply create a new thread in this category and make sure to fill out all the sections; we’ll be in touch as soon as possible to help and will escalate this issue to our Development Team if necessary!”
With all do respect, for task management to be useful, it generally must be kept as simple as possible. It seems you are trying to do this. Yes, there are several cases where people want/need to find the best, most practical or least bad way to implement something outside the norm. But for the most part, I want my task management system to be absolutely scrupulous about keeping it simple and having it “just work”.
Having said that, this last bit is only my quick take on your emphasis or tone, and may likely be somewhat colored by my current disappointment/frustration.
Okay, back to navigation. I’m now at:
<forum.asana-dot-com/t/about-the-report-a-bug-category/37736/4>
At this point, there is literally nowhere (that I can see or find) useful to go from this page. Again, this topic is closed (which, perhaps, is a “feature” of how your forum pages work, but again, how is anyone just trying to submit basic feedback or trying to get quick support to complete important task management while typically being tired and/or rushed supposed to react to this?)
To play devil’s advocate for just a bit, the one thing that anyone at their wits end might conceivably find useful on this page is the [Share] button, but they may be more likely to use it to trash your product.
Now, that is not really where you wanted to leave them, is it? Naturally, you’ll probably agree, “Of course not.”
The thing is though, at this point, you’ve used up all your words leading your poor users on a pointless scavenger hunt. What else would you expect them to do after you’ve made it clear through your bad design and lack of corrective action that you just don’t care.
Actions and deeds are all that are left here. You’ve fouled the ball and sidelined your users. Will you rally to recover or let your team down by getting tackled to lose the game just short of the finish line?
Here is what I strongly suggest you do:
- Walk through the above links in the current user-path navigation and collect all your prior instructions.
- Update the language to affirm your commitment to ensuring reliable basic functionality with prompt resolution of core issues, and your willingness (playful enthusiasm even to continue to expand on this functionality in creative and inspiring ways to encourage and empower your users to achieve their goals.
- Upgrade your core app.asana-dot-com UI layout to have clearly labeled help/support/feedback(/followup?) button(s) and/or menu items, which then go to One Single Page with those updated instructions, data entry area, and links for followup and/or locating past submissions.
- Test this functionality merceslously and often, even perhaps going as far as inserting its use into your own workflow, e.g. requiring your internal team to submit certain work requests though this form from external access points when traveling or working from home at regular intervals. AND, then immediatly verifying that it work or actually creating Asana tasks to follow-up for confirmation (that the functionality is still working, not just the task).
This may seem like kindergarden level stuff, but after some other company takes your lunch and pushes you in the dirt, that won’t matter and neither will Asana.
PS. I finally managed to submit this feedback by resorting to “flaying around” until I found a page with a [New Topic] button. Finally, to top it off, upon hitting submit, I recieved yet another error:
“Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post. [OK]”
I then converted all but two of the above Markdown links to quoted text and basic syntax, but dropping the http schema.
And yes, it took several attempts to find and remove all the links… Your Welcome, but after all that, you’d better address this as I now have the whole thing all ready as a backup and ready to share with the investment community and elsewhere.
Browser version:
Firefox Quantum - Extended Support Release (FF-ESR) 68.11.0esr (64-bit)
Upload screenshots below:
(I don’t have that kind of time. The links above should be sufficient, and fundamentally, the current appearance seems irrelevent as more-or-less a complete overhaul and (actual?) implementation of this function seems necessary.)