Not a fan of the new side bar – I opted out of the trial previously because I didn’t like it.
There should be an opt in for this, as well as for AI. We are all aware that AI exists – let me choose how I utilize it.
4 Likes
No, listen to the feedback and stop pushing your own design agenda. If you want to offer new products, fine, roll those out as NEW. But you’re decimating decades long workflows and making companies talk about how Asana isn’t a reliable tool because of UX efficiency risks. Just STOP changing core fundamental layouts and hiding teams and project views.
6 Likes
@Megan_Gill that’s the approach Basecamp has chosen: they run (or at least used to run) multiple versions of the products so the design changes wouldn’t impact a client who doesn’t want the change. That’s more the exception than the rule I’d say, most SaaS tools make decisions “for us” based on various factors. It could be disrupting sometimes, but is also allows the tool to move at a faster pace (Basecamp is slower because it has to maintain multiple versions)
1 Like
100% agree. Our company feels like this is a critical UI failure. One of our core usages for Asana is the ease and convenience of the Teams and Projects hierarchy. Now in order to access these menus, you need to navigate to “People” (which doesn’t even make sense as the label for that), and then once you select a Team or Project, Asana now defaults you back to the “Work” navigation tab instead of leaving you in the Team or Project you intentionally selected. Surely, this isn’t by design and represents a tremendous amount of additional clicking for no reason at all just to navigate back to the project we actually want to be viewing. This core UI nightmare is enough for our organization to pursue other options - the inconvenience is not to be understated.
5 Likes
The new updates to the views and layout are terrible. Nobody in our office who uses our program likes it. It is less intuitive and user friendly. I understand wanting to add new features but it would be great if when things like menus and layouts were going to be changed that the ability to customize the layout would also be added so that users had some choices in what works best for them.
8 Likes
This navigation is not helpful. As a user, removing teams from my main page is problematic. We use teams to organize our departmental work as a dashboard. The ‘teams’ dashboard is much easier to navigate like a landing page instead of the portfolios. The information is useful; however, it does not solve my core issue. We would like to have a choice in what and how we view our Asana. I’m unsure what feedback led to this change.
6 Likes
Why do product feedback posts about this change (importantly with the ability to vote/agree with the feedback) keep getting merged into this product launch post? A very old post at that. I can’t vote here, I can only hope the comments are being read and the negative impact on team workflows is being taken seriously.
To which point, this is an incredibly unwelcome change.
- Huge increase in wasted/blank space. Navigation and reading panes were visually cramped enough as it was.
- Home and Inbox buried in the “work” location instead of being persistent and accessible from anywhere in the platform.
- So. many. clicks. required to be able to navigate to key resources my team uses everyday because they got split between different locations.
- Can’t right click to open pages, which could maybe help alleviate navigation issues a little.
- Features that the vast majority of my team do not and SHOULD not touch (workflow management, custom field edits, rules edits) being put front and center and causing further noise in their navigation.
- “Agents” location when we explicitly disabled Asana AI features. We have no interest in AI and no need for it, now or in the future. Now it’s essentially a persistent add for “AI Teammates” that confuses the team and a totally unnecessary additional ‘page’.
- Starred list being divided between multiple locations; why? They are starred for a reason.
Shockingly negative impact on our team and very negatively received. Please revert.
7 Likes
are you explaining why the product management flow I’ve been using for 5 years being suddenly altered with no communication and no ability to revert is okay because basecamp does it? There is a reason I don’t use basecamp, I chose Asana.
1 Like
Dear Users
We understand that the new side menu may feel like a significant change and may cause some discomfort for those who have been using Asana for many years.
Currently, it is difficult to stop this major change.
However, please submit any individual requests regarding usability improvements through Product Feedback - Asana Forum.
People are trying. Many of them keep getting “merged” into this post, which is not product feedback.
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Are you going to acknowledge the latest release is causing catastrophic efficiency issues for users and project teams and actually rolls back to previous ux, or are you going to try and PR speak your way out of telling us the change is permanent because your product team over-invested in making changes no one wants or asked for? The feedback on this is overwhelmingly negative and no one from the company is actually acknowledging a problem or any of the solutions your paying customers are putting forward.
3 Likes
Our responses are not making it to the Product Feedback forum at all. In fact, I posted my original complaint in that exact space! Then it all got dumped here… seems like Asana doesn’t give a damn about this particular feedback at all.
3 Likes
I have some feedback regarding the new features.
For example, this one.
There are a few others as well, so please take a look.
1 Like
Yes, @ka_nishiyama , here’s a couple more that others here may want to vote on:
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We’ve recently been moved onto a new navigation layout, (in last two weeks) without any warning or option to opt out. We had no awareness that this was being worked on.
Some context: we’re a digital agency and have used Asana since 2013. We service around 30 clients, each set up as a team. Under the previous navigation we could access any team and its projects directly from the sidebar. That’s no longer possible. To reach a project I now have to click through to People, then click “Teams” three or four times — only around 10 teams load with each click — before I can finally open a project.
The new Work and Projects view doesn’t help with our setup either: it merges projects from all teams into one list, forcing us to rely on search, which is slower and more cumbersome than the navigation we had.
I’d ask you to reconsider how changes like this are rolled out. Many businesses have built specific workflows around Asana over years of use, and forcing changes without consultation or the ability to revert undermines that. An opt-out for beta features would go a long way.
This is yet another example of Asana making significant changes that have real impacts without any warning or providing the user any choice in adopting them or not.
11 Likes
Hi all, a few updates for you since I last checked in.
(1) Left rail customization is now on for everyone
You can now:
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Reorder items
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Switch to an icons-only left rail, which gives you back some horizontal space
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Turn off the People and Strategy items
To do so, refresh your Asana window and click the “…” in the left rail, then “Customize navigation”.
A few items can’t be turned off, which we know might not be what everyone wants. Those items represent the core of Asana’s product and we made a deliberate call to keep them in place as they are.
(2) Command-click is fixed
Opening a left rail item in a new tab with command-click (or ctrl-click) now works as expected.
(3) On navigating between teams and projects
We hear you on this. The feedback in this thread has been consistent about how the latest change affected moving between teams and their projects and we are actively exploring ways to address it. More to come.
(4) On a better minimized state
We’ve heard the request for a better collapsed state for the sidebar and we are actively discussing options here as well.
I’ll keep posting here as we move on (3) and (4). Thanks for continuing to share your experiences!
5 Likes
A first improvement, thanks for that 
One additional “issue” on my part: I don’t understand why a tab called “Agents” contains Project templates, starred forms… That title really does not fit the contents, in my opinion, to the point that I actively have to think each time “which tab was this under again?” to get to a starred form. I don’t see the logic in this.
2 Likes
Hi everyone,
We know the changes to the navigation experience has generated a lot of discussion. Please direct your comments, questions and ideas to the Product Feedback section of our Forum — where it can be voted on, tracked and prioritized rather than as a general discussion thread.
A few related topics already exist so consider adding your comments or votes here rather than opening a duplicate.
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Make the far left sidebar optional and allow movement of task windows
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An option to categorize all your “starred” list in the Nav pane
If your feedback is genuinely new, start a new topic here in Product Feedback and we’ll help route it.
Thank you for taking the time to tell us what’s working for you and what isn’t - we truly value your insights and thank you for continuing to share with us.
3 Likes
Thank you @Audrey_Breitwieser. This is a good start. Looking forward to seeing how the rest pans out. Thanks again.
1 Like