UI change - Project tabs/buttons in tasks pushed down

[Chris_Sylvester]

We can’t understand why you would choose to push the project tabs/buttons in the tasks down below this description box which has an expandable height. (see image below)

When the description gets long, as it often does, the project tabs/project buttons below now get pushed down off the view of the page so that you have to scroll down to add the task to a project.

Many of our tasks come in via email so the contents of the email fill up the description box meaning that the project tabs/buttons below are never visible until the user scrolls.

When we’re organising tasks, the three things we need to do in this area most are: Assign to a user, assign a due date and allocate it to a project or two.

Adding a task to a project is a much higher priority than seeing the pointless message banner about visibility that takes priority at the top of the task. Please relocate these tabs/button to where they were.

[Chris_B]

Yes, this is a most unhelpful change. It’s downright annoying. Please return the Project Tabs / Buttons to the top of the task.

[Joel_Ac]

Agreed,

Stupid, makes it much harder to work out where a job is. Please return locations back to where they were.

If there is a purpose for the move, can you please explain it to us?

Also, some form of notice would be great so that staff can be advised of changes before they come into effect.

Joel

[Florian]

+1 on really bad UI change. I hope that I’m just part of an A-B test

[bodr]

+1 Becouse, unusability and unhelpful change.

[Stas_Epifanov]

+1 Very painfull change if you actively changing project for tasks during workday

[Leonarce]

It certainly requires muscle memory to adapt to new place. I agree with those who against this design decision.

[Adrian_Marshall]

I usually like the changes the asana team makes. I do think the assign button and date are clearer by being under the title, but the check box next to the title tied in better with the rest of the app. Also the buttons at top right look hack and the previous buttons were classier.
I tried dozens of apps before settling on asana, and the new layout is starting to look a lot like the rest of them.

[Bibiana]

Every time I try to edit the title I click wrong on assign or due date. This is super counter intuitive because they are different fields and the input field is the middle of a lot of buttons.

Besides that, task title and description should be closer because they are both typing inputs. And in the end I had to add project, which should be a priority. Sorry but this is pretty bad.

[Sunny]

Indeed, this is a big obstacle in daily operations. Especially when you’re managing tasks associated to multiple projects (e.g., sprint boards) and need to maintain different sections in each one of them. When doing this work, we are primarily focusing on the task’s status and its project associations.

I’m not sure whether there is a persona for which the project associations are not really relevant. In our company everyone is responsible for maintaining proper task project associations on their own, so this affects all roles and people. However, if there is indeed such a type of user for whom the project associations are less relevant, then I would recommend to make the position/placement a configurable option in the user profile instead.

[Brian7]

Moving the project assignment area below the task definition is a terrible decision that makes your product suck to use. Please revert this change. I dont care about the rest of the changes on the task UI but this is abhorrent.

Part of me is wording if I did something to make you upset with me.

[Vince_Pane]

I’m disappointed the UI is moving in this direction. Formerly all the key items were accessible at a glance, in a single location. Now things have been complicated with no clear usability benefit. If anything this is a step back in both form and function.

[Benoit_Leveau]

Why are we now getting this yellow (yellow=warning) banner on every single task?
“This task is visible to members of XXXX. Make public”
It’s like the app wants you to get rid of teams and make all your tasks public for no good reason.

This new layout is downright confusing. I hope there’s a “use old layout” feature coming.

[Sunny]

I also noticed that these banners are visible more often now. However, that should probably be discussed in a separate issue/thread?

[Getz_Pro]

Wouldn’t that be better represented by a visibility icon that when clicked reveals options?

[Susanna]

I totally agree in the ask for please, please, please moving the projects field back to the top, or give us an option to toggle where it is located. As previously mentioned, with description field being not a fixed height (which is great!), many of our description fields are LONG, and it’s very frustrating to have to scroll down to see what projects it’s already in.

Also, haven’t submitted a support ticket for this yet, but the Tab+P to add a project has been very glitchy for me, so whenever it’s not working, it’s even more frustrating to have to scroll to add a project with the little plus (instead of from the upper right menu) if the task already is in one project.

Thanks for (hopefully) listening!

[Susanna]

“When the description gets long, as it often does, the project tabs/project buttons below now get pushed down off the view of the page so that you have to scroll down to add the task to a project.”

Not only do you now have to scroll down, but you can’t even start to get it into muscle memory how far to scroll down, because of the varying lengths of descriptions, we now have to scroll different lengths for different tasks to get to the project options.

[Przemek]

I DO LIKE that the MARK COMPLETE button is now above all.
I find the change in layout as a change for better, however I agree that project above description would suit better, and adding a tag should be more intuitive. I do use TAB+T shortcut, but not everyone in my team does.

[JG_USeDirect]

Would just like to +1 this thread and add that no one in my company is a fan of this UI change. Is there a way to notify us when you make a change to the UI or any other feature (especially if it relates to security)? We would like to know if you’re going to change your product so we can give our engineers warning before an update is released, especially if it negatively affects our workflow. Just know that everyone here in my business prefers the way it looked previously. Thanks.

[lpb]

I’m a very longtime Asana user (and beta tester for Redesign, Android and other projects), and dismayed, like the others, by these changes.

Asana is an amazing achievement, and the designers and designs are world class, so I hope we get to understand the user research and design goals that have resulted in the new design shown.

My primary concern is that the new design doesn’t prioritize more highly my content. Chrome and whitespace are given too high a priority. Examples:

• Inordinately large “Mark Complete” button
• One third of toolbar (between Mark Complete and icons) unused
• Multi-line and full-width visibility yellow notice not at least partially collapsed initially
• Multi-line and full-width Assignee and Date Date fields that used to be take up vastly less space

As a result, I don’t get to see nearly as much of my Task’s Description, Subtasks and Projects, which are the content and the reason I’m here in the first place. Content needs more primacy in this design.

Some choices made would seem to violate basic design principles:

• The new Mark Complete button (rectangle, icon+words, large) looks nothing like the same-purpose control in the main pane (circle, icon-only, small)
• The vertical position of the Project(s)/Section area will vary greatly depending on the length of the Description; typically the solution would be to avoid that by placing those largely fixed-height fields above the more variable Description.

But if the direction is to keep everything (e.g., the Visibility notice), and maintain the new sizes of controls and increased whitespace, did you consider offering a vertical navigation option? I successfully addressed long, scrolled pages with multiple sections (not unlike this detail pane) by a sticky, top row of tabs that act like anchor links, e.g.,:

• Task | Description | Subtasks | Comment

You could more easily and much more directly jump vertically in the pane with this approach. My design goal for this was to replace the imprecise use of the scroll bar where a lot of user time is otherwise spent in a design like this.

Still, I’d prefer a more compact, better layout instead.

Again, it would be great to hear the rationale for the changes; we can only guess now. Asana is so widely used in so many different ways, it’s hard to know which use case is seen as primary. Given that another Asana design goal seems to be to avoid configuration options, it’s a real challenge to satisfy everyone. Our strong reactions are an indication of our respect for how great the product is more than an airing of grievances!

Thanks,

Larry