UI change - Project tabs/buttons in tasks pushed down

This is the only point I disagree with. We use ā€˜copy linkā€™ all the time in other, non-integrated software. But Iā€™d love to have the ā€˜tagā€™ icon back where it was because I use it all the time :slight_smile:

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Agreed - this is very counter-intuitive for us, the description section can sometimes get long as we add a lot of info in here like brief details or specs.

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Please move the project buttons back up to the top. I hate scrolling through long descriptions to find it (every single task sent in from email has a description long enough to push the project off the screen). Iā€™m wasting precious time finding this over and over each day. Overall I like the other changes but I canā€™t say that they are saving me any of the time I now waste b/c the project field is buried.

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Hi @Matt_Eggers! One good workaround is to use the ā€œTab+Pā€ shortcut to automatically get to the ā€œProjectā€ field without having to scroll through the task description. Hope this helps!

1 Like

Hello,

I think your recent Task layout update is a step backwards (see images below). I see no reason why ā€œMark Completeā€ button should have label (the check mark is pretty obvious by itself) and why the asignee and due date is moved from the header to additional separate row within task body, leaving plenty of whitespace in the header. Itā€™s just inefficeint use of space moving all the task details and conversations downwards in the view. Additionally, moving project tags below description separates metadata by the content (description) - this is counter-productive if a description is longer than one line and there are custom fields blockā€¦

24 Likes

Just wanted to add my voice that I also have been finding the projects under the description is counterintuitive. The Asana hierarchy is workspace ā†’ team ā†’ project ā†’ task. Itā€™s fairly clear which workspace and team youā€™re in (although to be honest, the recent changes make workspace less clear), but itā€™s really critical to know which project and section a task is in. It gives the task context, especially if you might have similarly named tasks in other projects or sections. Surely new users need this as much as experienced users?

And in response to the explanations regarding helping new users - my suggestion would be to have a toggle in the settings that turns the labels on or off (Assignee, Due Date, Complete Task). Default it to On for new users, have a way for people to turn it off.

Or, play the user guide video by default for new users.

Or, a more detailed ā€œguided tourā€ overlay for new users.

Because youā€™re not going to add labels to every little thing, are you?

Improving onboarding is great, Iā€™m sure many of us commenting have teammates, colleagues or clients we want to pick up Asana quickly and easily - but hopefully Asana could reconsider the importance of seeing the project and section ā€œat-a-glanceā€ for all users.

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Why!? In the Task right pane please please put the Project tab back up under the Task title where it belongs.

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@Kaitie @Marie

Thanks for your feedback. I assumeā€“due to the excellent power of Asana and your inherent need to have an interest in Asana working wellā€“that your own Asana teams are also using Asana to track who does what in the building and upkeep of Asana.

  1. Am I correct in my assumption Asana teams use Asana internally to track their own work?
  2. If so, how has the Asana staff dealt with the much-discussed issue of projects being below the description line?

I get that you have to go with developing towards what the data tells you, but if you all are assigning anything to projects, I have a hard time believing that your teams would like this change either, and therefore probably are figuring out ways around it, just like we users have been here.

If your teams are using Asana internally, you would presumably have the longest-running and most experience using Asana, and have the most interest in making it work correctly for you, since your jobs and job satisfaction rely on that. Whereas we Asana users can (disappointedly) choose to switch to a lesser-platform if need be, you all at Asana canā€™t really switch. You need to make it work for your team, if Iā€™m correct in that you are using it. So, that said, Iā€™d you have workarounds for this, or CSS your team is using to correct it, please share.

The suggested workaround of Tab-P has never worked consistently for me, even before I was using CSS to style Asana back closer to the old UI, and especially now with the CSS Iā€™m using, the Tab-P shortcut doesnā€™t work at all.

Even at the times Tab-P did sometimes work for me, I found it to be a rather useless shortcut, in that it only letā€™s you jump to the first project field. Ifā€“as is almost always the case in my work flowā€“a task is associated with at least one project, and needs to be added to a second or third project, as well, then Tab-P (sometimes) would let me jump to the project field, but Iā€™d then have to use my trackpad/mouse to click on the plus sign anyway to add it to an additional project, instead of Tab-P always working to always let me add to a project (whether there already was an associated project or not). Since the shortcut description says ā€œadd to project,ā€ Iā€™d assume it would always let me do exactly that: add to a project without using my mouse. But it does not do that, even when it is working.

So other workarounds would be welcome. As would fixing the Tab-P to work by actually adding to an additional project (not highlighting the first associated project). As would fixing the UI in the next update to have the project back at the top, anywhere above the description field.

Thanks!

4 Likes

@Susanna, not to detract from the topic here, which I agree with and have voted for, but to maybe help with the TAB+P issue: After hitting TAB+P hit tab again for those tasks that are already assigned to a project. Itā€™ll take you to the ā€œadd another projectā€ field.

1 Like

Respectfully, the problem with Asana saying ā€˜use TAB+P and TAB+Tā€™ to a mouse-user is that itā€™s trying to force change of a strong habit, with no clear gain for the annoyance it causes.

Also, Iā€™ve been using TAB+P for a while and still havenā€™t figured out how to change the section without using my mouseā€¦ is this possible?

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@Evaldas_Micius, thank you for taking the time for making this comparison. It makes it very clear what is wrong with the new layout. I can ad 2 more problems: the yellow bar, saying: ā€œThis task is visible to its collaboratorsā€ or ā€œThis task is private to members of this projectā€ (which make the task layout even more longer) and adding tags is now behind the 3 dots (so also counter-productive).

@Marie, can you send this picture to the development team? Maybe it helps Asana to better understand why so many users have problems with the new UI. Thank you!

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@Donna_B, thank you for your contribution! You put it all very clear!

@Marie and @Kaitie, could you please send this comment to your development team. @Donna_B makes it very clear why so many users want to go back to the old UI. Thank you!

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When the task is long by sending from email, I have to scroll down to select section which is next to project name
image. This is a bad design.

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There are a lot of discussions going on about the new design. @Marie can probably merge your post with the others.

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Thanks for the mention @Bastien_Siebman, and thanks for sharing your feedback @Dean_Le. iā€™ve just merged it with the main thread to centralise all feedbacks!

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+1 to all comments above. Come on Asanaā€¦itā€™s OK to say ā€œoopsā€¦we screwed this one upā€. The comments above indicate that the user base doesnā€™t just need to get used to a few changesā€¦theyā€™ve lost productivity based on the recent interface changes. They feel the productivity lost by the change is so bad that some of them have even started engineering changes via styles to try and regain the productivity.

I mean seriouslyā€¦a ā€œLikeā€ button (something to make us feel good?) is more important than tagging a task (something productive thatā€™s now on a dropdown menu)ā€¦this isnā€™t friggen Facebook.

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@Marie and @Kaitie, thanks for coming into the conversation. It had gone quiet for too long.
I also appreciate that Asana provides this community, which provides the ability to discuss the product with Asana and other users.

Iā€™ve gone through the topic and collected some data, for anyone that is interested. I submit that it clearly demonstrates this change is something that Asana should be seriously reconsidering.

Stats on this topic:

  • Age of topic: almost 2 months
  • Votes: 91
    • Only ties it for 13th most votes, but it got there in less than 2 months.
    • Most votes ever received. 205.
  • Replies: 155
    • 2nd most replies ever.
    • Most being 176. And it took a year for it to get to 155 replies.
  • Users: 74
  • New Users: 30
    • People appear to feel strongly enough about this change, that they are joining the community to look for answers and ask for help.
    • (Is Asana still pushing this update out to additional users? People continue to join the community to post to this topic. And people are still posting they just got changed over.)
  • Users that stated they speak for their organization: 18
  • Likes: 745
  • Number of topics that were merged into this one: 8

I canā€™t think of another topic that got this kind of attention in this short a time. If you were looking for feedback to this change, you clearly got it.

But what to reconsider? People have different concerns about this change, and some have shared positive feedback with some of the changes. Looking through the comments, Iā€™ve distilled it down to what the complaints are and how many users complained.

  • Projects below the description: 52
  • Tags below the description: 22
  • The yellow visibility warning: 12
  • Completed button: 11
  • Assignee field: 9
  • Due Date field: 7
  • Everything: 7
  • Inefficient use of space: 5
  • The new buttons: 5
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Iā€™m going to add my voice here that putting tags and projects below the description feels backwards to my teamā€™s workflow. If this change is supported by data, Iā€™m curious to know how that data was gathered. And, why not consider this thread part of the data which supports keeping things how they were?

May I recommend adding an option for this so users can choose? I already love the Asana ā€œhacksā€ provided in my user profile. Would love to be able to choose the order of info on the task pane - that way I can display info the way that best suites my needs, and others can do the same.

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So are we done with A/B testing? I still hate the new layout after month of using. Please give me the old UI back. I wonder whatā€™s the point of having community voiced out but decision are still made based on data :anguished:

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Do you have any thoughts on Monday? Iā€™ve been looking for an unbiased review since they started advertising everywhere. It seemed visually appealing but fairly shallow as an organization tool. And the pricing structure was not great. But I also wasnā€™t able to give it a thorough test.

1 Like