

Visual Task Management for Individuals and Teams - davidjgraph
https://www.droptask.com/

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adrianhoward
Have to admit - from the video and a five minute play I find it very hard to
imagine using this for anything.

The information density is very low. Doesn't seem to allow you to easily order
tasks beyond dates. Lousy on phones. I could go on.

List aren't boring... there useful. I don't go to my project management
software to be entertained - I go there to get shit done ;-)

What I want to know when I go to project management software is what everybody
is doing now and what needs to be done next and by whom. This interface seems
to hinder not help with that.

~~~
calinet6
The problem with lists is not boredom, it's importance overload.

When you have 1000 items (conservative for our business, in Asana we must have
at least that many), the problem is that no matter how many categories or
hierarchies you make, there's no way to make sense of the information
overload. I call it importance overload because that's what it is: when
everything _looks_ the same and _feels_ the same, everything becomes the same
importance. And when you have 1000 items of the same importance, _nothing_ is
important. This is a design paradigm used on information. I think it works
well to describe the problem.

There's no list structure that yet exists that solves this problem. Nothing
that brings your list of 1000+ things into a manageable analogue of what is
actually important for you to see and do at any given time, in any given
context.

I don't think this is it, but it's getting closer. And "lists" are still not
sufficient. We can do better.

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sigkill
I'm no programmer but I suddenly thought of a possible solution - adaptive
sizing. Depending on the importance, the first few words of the task would
appear bigger or smaller appropriately. I'm sure this would work great on the
desktop but I have no idea how good this can be designed to appear on a mobile
phone screen (3.5-4.5inches).

~~~
calinet6
Yes, I'm thinking along those lines. I have a product idea for solving this
problem... just no time. :)

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ryanbrunner
It's certainly "prettier" than Trello, but I'm not sure how functional it
would actual be in a real world scenario. There's no functional benefit as far
as I can see to putting things in fancy-looking circles, and (I'm imagining)
the usability of that interface is severely diminished as you start to get a
large number of items in any particular category.

A great example of how great UI doesn't necessarily equate to great UX, in my
opinion.

~~~
cgislason
The circles actually seems to reduce value because there is no intuitive order
to each group. In some (many?) use cases for Trello, priority is important.

One thing that the circle metaphor does add is nested groups, which I can see
being important for a different set of use cases.

~~~
ams6110
Video wouldn't load for me, but I gather that priority is indicated by the
size of the circle?

That said, I tend to agree. Trello works at least in part because it's
immediately intuitive to anyone who's ever made a "to-do" list or used cards-
on-a-whiteboard to manage a project.

The Droplist approach is a cool idea though, and for some things it might be
better.

~~~
cgislason
I played with it a bit and unless I missed something, the size of the circle
is only related to how many other circles are inside it.

~~~
william_uk
> I played with it a bit and unless I missed something, the size of the circle
> is only related to how many other circles are inside it.

This is true - the group (used to categorize task circles) grows to fit the
content. We did play with allowing task circles to be resized to show
priority/effort, etc, but couldn't get it to work well. We may revisit it,
though.

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foresterh
I think this could be a great addition to the normal list view. Different
people process things better or worse with pictures vs lists vs charts,etc.

I think this could be a great tool for planning or just looking at a snapshot
of your day, developer, project, etc.But in order to be a full fledged issue
tracker, you need to be able to filter, report,pivot,etc.

Just my two cents.I think it looks great and is promising.

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jbranchaud
Trello really excels as a smartphone app. It is especially clean and
functional in that setting. This approach, while pretty in the browser,
probably couldn't function on a smartphone.

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dgreensp
That's the coolest web app demo video I've seen, possibly ever! Looking
forward to trying it. I actually visualize tasks as bubbles or blobs in my
head, so this should be interesting.

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mikemoka
This looks useful, beside looking prettier because it gives you a quick
overview of everything and lets you zoom in/out on the specific activities, it
feels more productive, the only thing that is non apparent is how dependent or
subsequent tasks may be clearly visualized with this approach in my opinion.

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vineet
I like it. It lets me see all the items at a higher level. The best part so
far is that I can move groups into one another.

Using it quickly makes me want a couple of features:

\- not needing drag n drop for something (like creating a new task or group -
be default putting them in the previous group or top level)

\- being able to add tasks that are at the intersection of two groups. I
imagine this would look something like a venn-diagram.

Finally, I am reluctant to support a startup unless I know how you are
planning to survive. Is it going to be advertisement? not yet release feature?
large teams? Once you do this, I will be more comfortable telling others.

~~~
Ygg2
From FAQ:

    
    
       Is DropTask really free?
       Yes! In the future we plan to offer paid-for business
       accounts and premium individual accounts 
       (each with additional features), however the basic  
       version of DropTask will remain free.

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anandkulkarni
I like this concept, and I think it can be improved through some more
experimenting with the UI.

Here's my feedback: from an interface perspective a visual process for
organizing tasks is very appealing. But things weren't as intuitive as Trello.
For example: clicking a task didn't let me edit its name; it brought up a
window. Clicking "new task" was my first step, when really, I have a list of
groups I want to create (like in Trello)

Speed is really crucial for me in using a system like this.

~~~
william_uk
Thanks for your comments. Some kind of 'quick-add' for tasks and groups is
definitely something we are considering.

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FrejNorling
This might be a bug, or not. If I have 2 groups with different colors and put
one inside the other, the inner group changes color. Did not expect this
behavior.

~~~
william_uk
> This might be a bug, or not. If I have 2 groups with different colors and
> put one inside the other, the inner group changes color. Did not expect this
> behavior.

This is by design - we simply could not get the visuals to look at all decent
with mixed colours for nested groups. The idea is that the one colour applies
for the entire category.

~~~
FrejNorling
Ok, that's fine!

Thanks for the clearification.

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dropdownmenu
Be careful to not get caught up in making something too pretty. It might help
get some initial sign ups, but people will leave quickly if the app is not
useful.

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bane
This looks like a great alternative to Trello. I'd also add the option to have
bullseye nested circles to indicate priority. Typically there are fewer high
priority items than low, and this metaphor should support that use case. It
also helps coax the user that attending to high priority tasks is like hitting
a bullseye.

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pgcosta
It looks really good, and seems very simple and intuitive. You should add
Polls or ramifications or both. Imagine if there are 3 options to make a task.
You should be able to show those three options, and let the people vote on the
one that should be made. Just a thought. Good luck.

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fein
Just one thing:

make your modals close on the click action for the actual close button on the
modal. Right now, you can dismiss the "edit task" modal by clicking outside of
it. This causes you to lose any work done inside said modal via misclick.

~~~
william_uk
Thanks for this. I personally like just clicking off to dismiss the modal, but
admittedly if we keep this we need to be a bit cleverer in terms of not just
losing the changes.

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lazyjones
I don't really like curved text, that is just hard to read.

While more such project management tools are undoubtedly a good thing, I'd
much prefer to have one I can host myself for corporate use (for
security/confidentiality/hacking on it).

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zoobert
This is nice but miss a way to order tasks and groups (using priority for
example). Would be also nice to relate groups to each others with a link
(arrow something) to organise your project diagram. Finally the print doesn't
work. If you cannot print to provide an overview of all the tasks of the
project then this tool is less useful for me as I would like to bring my task
split to a meeting room without an internet connection for example. It would
be nice to print only a sub selection as well (only the selected groups).
Anyway I like the zoom an unzoom functionality that provide a quick way to
have an overview of the tasks.

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bithive123
I'm going to try this for a while since it was easy to start using it with my
Google apps domain. Within the first few minutes it has become clear that I
need a way to convert a task into a group. I find myself wanting to express
task dependencies by dragging things into each other but I can't drag a task
onto another task. Annoying.

Edit: Also, a visual indicator of task progress, or more intermediate states
(blocked, started, in progress, etc) would be helpful too.

Edit 2: And I've hit an arbitrary three project limit. So much for dumping my
task list into this thing. Evaluation concluded.

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teyc
This is visually very interesting. You can tell that there is a lot of care
being put into the transitions and all. It's a pretty competitive market out
there in terms of "to do lists". With a good UI, it gives you a fighting
chance. Sure it might not be for everyone, but that's the point. Segment the
market and fight for your share.

How did you find backbone and D3. Do they play well together in terms of
overall code maintainability? What worked and what didn't?

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ROFISH
Does it have dependencies? Team management can't work, in my opinion, if you
have a task named "fold shirts" but it appears and is assigned before somebody
"buys shirts".

~~~
william_uk
> Does it have dependencies?

Not as yet, but this is an early release of the product and we are
aggressively adding new features and improvements. This is definitely
something we are considering.

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bsg75
Would a directed graph metaphor add to this? If task circles could be linked
in order of precedence, and project circles linked to show resource
collaboration, the resulting diagram layout could be visually useful.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Dir...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Directed_acyclic_graph_3.svg/356px-
Directed_acyclic_graph_3.svg.png)

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desireco42
OK so I don't think I would say, replace Trello right now, but this is really
neat service, well done.

I especially like how things are visual and how you can zoom in and out and
see this as potentially very useful feature. I will continue to review it and
use it.

Also, describing it as Trello killer, I think made us expect way too much of
it. So this might not worked the way it was intended.

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ripter
So far it beats Trello on the one issue that bugs me most. When I complete
something it actually goes away instead of sitting there forever.

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vph
It would be interesting if there is a study that comprehensively measures if
these pretty tools actually improves productivity in comparison to using
simple text editors.

My guess is they don't. My guess is people might find them fancy and pretty
initially but eventually recognize that they don't actually improve efficiency
or effectiveness.

~~~
kelvin0
You probably also advocate using shared folders to collaborate on code
development too? Those darn kids and their 'innovations' ...

~~~
vph
Make no mistake, I'm not against real innovations. For example, I've been
using git and advocating for it, while many of my peers are still with older
CVS systems.

The point is if you masquerade a solution to a non-problem with pretty things,
it just wastes everyone's time and energy.

Like I said, it would be interesting if there is a study to find out if any of
these pretty task management tools actually increases productivity.

~~~
kelvin0
Did you wait for a study before you switched to git? Or did you simply start
using it cause it made sense?

Let's be realistic here ...

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ataleb52
It's a cool looking alternative. But functionally I know it doesn't really
meet my needs. The circles make the calendar view somewhat confusing to look
at and I'm not a big fan of not being able to look at my tasks in order that
they have to be completed within an individual group.

Cool idea just not very useful for me personally.

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raeldc
I like everything except the circles and how I had to drag drop before I can
create a task. Droptask should also make a card wall layout and make the
circles optional. The circles layout is too polarizing an interface to be the
"muse".

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quizotic
Wow. It's SO beautiful! And I love the care you took to show me how to use it.

I have no idea if I'll continue use it on a daily basis (Trello for now), but
it's fun, and pretty.

Well done, and thank you!

~~~
william_uk
Thanks for your comments - much appreciated!

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davidcristello
This looks like a headache to work with. Wasn't a fan and didnt have enough
value to try and test out. Will keep on radar but doesnt look promising or a
decent replacement to trello

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martinstartsup
Interesting tool though right now in our company we use Symphonical.com a lot
as it is well integrated with Google+ Hangout and has useful templates to
organize and share tasks.

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dragonbonheur
Impressive. It's nice to see alternatives out there.

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FrejNorling
What's the stack behind this? Very nice by the way!

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william_uk
> What's the stack behind this? Very nice by the way!

The entire app is written in CoffeScript - we're using Node.js on the backend
and the front is mainly SVG/D3.js/Backbone.js.

~~~
FrejNorling
Thanks!

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irmbrady
Will there ever be time tracking? That's one feature I really wish Trello had
by default.

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william_uk
> Will there ever be time tracking? That's one feature I really wish Trello
> had by default.

We are currently considering all feature requests and this is one I've heard a
few times. As such, it is definitely something we will consider!

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codeme
Nice UI! I will give it a try.

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tommi
Boring round lists of tasks.

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brador
Is their a twitter bootstrap style thing for web apps? Something to make the
layout and buttons easier to get just right?

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ryanbrunner
Um, isn't Twitter Bootstrap a "twitter bootstrap style thing for web apps"?

