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My team tested Taiga on a small project. It did not work for us, with a half dozen users of mixed sophistication. Those of us who know our way around these kind

My team tested Taiga on a small project. It did not work for us, with a half dozen users of mixed sophistication. Those of us who know our way around these kinds of tools could make it work, but also felt the problems that newer users could not resolve. - The "Save" icon is tiny and hard to find in some layouts (right hand gutter, near the top and far away from your linear text entry flow). It's a floppy disk! Navigating away does not warn you that you have unsaved edits. - Issues can be converted to Stories after review. Great. But there is no indication that the Issue has been converted, and reporters can continue to edit Issues, and the changes are not synced to the new Story item. This was very confusing for some people, and created way more friction than could be reasoned away. - Information density was OK with a small quantity of items/comments/etc, but too sparse for a confident view with large quantities. We moved this project over to test GitHub Projects, which is an improvement but also lacking in some important (different) areas. ... All of these tools have always sucked on some or several dimensions. It's probably impossible to not suck. JIRA can be made to work, though I will never do so again. Pivotal Tracker is solid but overwhelming for reporters/casual users, and requires custom code to integrate with GitHub (but API is decent). Sometimes I miss Trac and Redmine, if only because anything that bothered me enough could be fixed in our self-hosted instance.

satvikpendem 4y ago
The problem is developers, especially open source ones, discount the value of design and user interfaces. There are often no OSS designers, because the same culture around OSS development is not there in those designer circles, so this is why you see most OSS be terrible from a user interface and experience standpoint.
- quesera 4y ago
  I don't think it's true that OSS devs don't value design. Maybe 20 years ago there was a bit of vestigial dismissiveness. Before that, more so. However I definitely agree that the OSS culture is not as prevalent in the design world. But I think the real issue is that UX is more work than most developers expect, and especially to iterate over time. UX mistakes (or imperfections) are visible for all to see, and correctness is sometimes subjective. Imagine if all of our users were able, qualified, and effectively required to evaluate source code! We do some lazy/misguided/opinionated stuff too, sometimes! :) I didn't mean to dis Taiga above. It's thoroughly functional, if not quite right for the users I was testing with. I tried Taiga because I know the other options mostly suck, and my next-step-test is not definitively better!
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    > I don't think it's true that OSS devs don't value design. Maybe 20 years ago there was a bit of vestigial dismissiveness. I'm not sure, I still see this dismissiveness. Hell, open any HN thread about design and see how many will ask what designers even do all day, or talk about them as if they're "less than" developers.
    - wvh 4y ago
      Well, everybody was a web designer 20 years ago. Nowadays we've got people who are actually good at graphical and frontend design and have actually studied their discipline. My scepticism dropped a few notches the first time I got to work with some people who really knew what they are doing and saw the value they bring and how they can save a lot of time and excruciatingly bad experimentation.
  - kelp_ 4y ago
    Hi, Taiga Designer here! We are aware of the kind of design issues you mentioned. But, for now, we are only solving critical issues (kind of security ones and so) on Taiga 6 because our team is focused on the design and development of the new Taiga Next (codename). We really appreciate this feedback, though, and are actively listening to the community. I can proudly say that our team not only cares about design, but has put Design and User Experience at the center of the product development. We are designing an improved interface, with special accessible approach, and also having special care about the way space is used (information density like you said). Likewise, we know this is a critical point in terms of a project management tool. I'm really looking forward to sharing more advances! For now, we are sharing some of them on Taiga community (https://community.taiga.io/ https://community.taiga.io/), please feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, and feedback.
    - quesera 4y ago
      This is great to hear, and totally understood that you should be focusing energies on the new stuff! I'm a strong proponent of open source and highly usable tools for critical project infrastructure. I really wanted Taiga to work for us, and I look forward to revisiting it in the new version.
- wvh 4y ago
  Oh I think open-source developers care about design these days, but they're focused on getting the core functionality to work and there's only that many hours in a day. I think designers are not joining open-source projects because it requires learning some other skills that might not be interesting to them, like some basic Git, build systems and a handful of unix commands. There are several sites that have designers making mock-ups and uploading showcases of their work. If there would be a way to link those two communities together, some interesting cross-pollination might happen naturally where developers can get some fresh ideas and designers don't have to produce visual designs floating in a void.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Why do designers need to know git or build the actual app? The designers I've worked with in corporate settings work in Figma, they don't touch the code at all. We have design handoffs where we ask questions about the designs and implement them in code.
dkryptr 4y ago
https://linear.app https://linear.app is nice. I haven't used it with a large group but for some personal projects and it works nicely.
- theK 4y ago
  Is this self hostable? I couldn't find anything on the website or their github so I presume SaaS?
- wvh 4y ago
  Linear looks good but it's SaaS only. It doesn't feel like a good idea to pump a lot of a company's crucial data into an external system without a way to get it out and continue elsewhere (which is a problem with a lot of bug tracking and project planning software).
highmastdon 4y ago
I have used https://shortcut.com https://shortcut.com and it’s been a great pleasure. Not free though

satvikpendem 4y ago

The problem is developers, especially open source ones, discount the value of design and user interfaces. There are often no OSS designers, because the same culture around OSS development is not there in those designer circles, so this is why you see most OSS be terrible from a user interface and experience standpoint.

quesera 4y ago
I don't think it's true that OSS devs don't value design. Maybe 20 years ago there was a bit of vestigial dismissiveness. Before that, more so. However I definitely agree that the OSS culture is not as prevalent in the design world. But I think the real issue is that UX is more work than most developers expect, and especially to iterate over time. UX mistakes (or imperfections) are visible for all to see, and correctness is sometimes subjective. Imagine if all of our users were able, qualified, and effectively required to evaluate source code! We do some lazy/misguided/opinionated stuff too, sometimes! :) I didn't mean to dis Taiga above. It's thoroughly functional, if not quite right for the users I was testing with. I tried Taiga because I know the other options mostly suck, and my next-step-test is not definitively better!
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  > I don't think it's true that OSS devs don't value design. Maybe 20 years ago there was a bit of vestigial dismissiveness. I'm not sure, I still see this dismissiveness. Hell, open any HN thread about design and see how many will ask what designers even do all day, or talk about them as if they're "less than" developers.
  - wvh 4y ago
    Well, everybody was a web designer 20 years ago. Nowadays we've got people who are actually good at graphical and frontend design and have actually studied their discipline. My scepticism dropped a few notches the first time I got to work with some people who really knew what they are doing and saw the value they bring and how they can save a lot of time and excruciatingly bad experimentation.
- kelp_ 4y ago
  Hi, Taiga Designer here! We are aware of the kind of design issues you mentioned. But, for now, we are only solving critical issues (kind of security ones and so) on Taiga 6 because our team is focused on the design and development of the new Taiga Next (codename). We really appreciate this feedback, though, and are actively listening to the community. I can proudly say that our team not only cares about design, but has put Design and User Experience at the center of the product development. We are designing an improved interface, with special accessible approach, and also having special care about the way space is used (information density like you said). Likewise, we know this is a critical point in terms of a project management tool. I'm really looking forward to sharing more advances! For now, we are sharing some of them on Taiga community (https://community.taiga.io/ https://community.taiga.io/), please feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, and feedback.
  - quesera 4y ago
    This is great to hear, and totally understood that you should be focusing energies on the new stuff! I'm a strong proponent of open source and highly usable tools for critical project infrastructure. I really wanted Taiga to work for us, and I look forward to revisiting it in the new version.
wvh 4y ago
Oh I think open-source developers care about design these days, but they're focused on getting the core functionality to work and there's only that many hours in a day. I think designers are not joining open-source projects because it requires learning some other skills that might not be interesting to them, like some basic Git, build systems and a handful of unix commands. There are several sites that have designers making mock-ups and uploading showcases of their work. If there would be a way to link those two communities together, some interesting cross-pollination might happen naturally where developers can get some fresh ideas and designers don't have to produce visual designs floating in a void.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Why do designers need to know git or build the actual app? The designers I've worked with in corporate settings work in Figma, they don't touch the code at all. We have design handoffs where we ask questions about the designs and implement them in code.

dkryptr 4y ago

https://linear.app https://linear.app is nice. I haven't used it with a large group but for some personal projects and it works nicely.

theK 4y ago
Is this self hostable? I couldn't find anything on the website or their github so I presume SaaS?
wvh 4y ago
Linear looks good but it's SaaS only. It doesn't feel like a good idea to pump a lot of a company's crucial data into an external system without a way to get it out and continue elsewhere (which is a problem with a lot of bug tracking and project planning software).

highmastdon 4y ago

I have used https://shortcut.com https://shortcut.com and it’s been a great pleasure. Not free though