What were they thinking at Asana?

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Posted by Ken
Jul 13, 2015 at 06:58 PM

I am sorry if it seems like I have been on an extended rant these days with a number of programs, but I am sorry to say that my “lucky” streak continues. I needed to set up some new projects in an unused workspace that I have at Asana, and after entering a few items, I went to add some tags. The tags were not showing up in the left pane just beneath the projects, and having remembered having a similar problem back in February, I looked back on my support ticket to see if I could find the command that would display them. After extensive searching, I had no success as the dialog box where they were previously located had been moved, and the new box did offer any similar command. I filled out a support ticket, and I will quote the response that I received this morning:

“As you already know, we recently updated our user interface. With this update, tags in the left pane is no longer available. The Workspaces that already have it enabled will still have it, but we have plans to eventually remove this feature for all Workspaces.

As this new layout was recently released, we are gathering any and all feedback requesting for the return of tags in the left pane.

I cannot promise that we will bring this back, but all user feedback will be taken into consideration as we continue to iterate and improve the product.”

I do not understand how a user is supposed to use or manage tags if they cannot see a list of them. Am I missing something here, or are we once again the victims of style over function? It would be great if when companies decide to remove or significantly modify key features that they offer some explanation or alternate workflow. I would love the hear the rationale for this decision, and how they expect users to use tags, a key feature of many task management programs, without having access to them. What were they thinking?

—Ken

Posted by Garland Coulson
Jul 14, 2015 at 11:04 PM

I find it really annoying when software companies drop features without consultation with users. I left Evernote because they did this multiple times.

Posted by Ken
Jul 15, 2015 at 03:33 PM

Garland Coulson wrote:
I find it really annoying when software companies drop features without
>consultation with users. I left Evernote because they did this multiple
>times.

I can understand updating the core feature set, if only to keep things fresh for potential customers, but I just do not understand dropping key features like the ability to manage and display tags. I guess I sort of assumed that having access to tags, usually in the left pane, was pretty much a given for many of the task management programs. And without a list of them, are users just expected top memorize all of their tags? I am more than willing to listen to their rationale for any changes, but it is rarely given, as though they know what is best. yes, we can “vote with our feet”, but that is not really a business model I find conducive to building good customer relationships.

—Ken

Posted by Ken
Aug 12, 2015 at 04:49 PM

I stumbled across a Google+ group for Asana users and there was a reference to a blog post (below) that somehow does not show up when you go directly to Asana’s blog. After sifting through the comments, it appears that I am not the only one that is having issues with their recent changes. Asana claims that they have made some changes and were looking to possibly roll back the changes, but when I look at my site, I must not have been impacted because I thankfully cannot see any of the changes that caused such an uproar.

https://blog.asana.com/2015/07/more-navigation-improvements/

—Ken

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