- A competitive analysis was conducted of chat and communication features in project management tools like Trello to identify pain points and opportunities.
- A survey found 64% of Trello users want a chat feature, and many use other products to workaround Trello's limitations. Common pain points included comments being off screen and a lack of integration.
- Competitors like Slack were analyzed, finding they have more advanced chat and collaboration features than Trello.
- Different design ideas were proposed and tested, including integrating chat into Trello's interface to allow easier communication about specific tasks and boards.
3. Competitive Analysis
1. Brief
2. What people want
3. What we found
4. Pain points
1. Work process
2. Observation
3. Ideation
4. Testing
1. Prototype & scenarios
2. Future steps
AGENDA
5. Competitive Analysis
TRELLO ON CHAT
users should be able to engage in conversations more
START CHAT ON SPECIFIC TOPIC/RESOURCE
without overwhelming users. without losing information
CHAT
9. “I use this product but
COMMUNICATION
HAPPENS PRIMARILY
ELSEWHERE”
51%
STATUS QUO
10. “I use this product but
COMMUNICATION
HAPPENS PRIMARILY
ELSEWHERE”
“I often have to use
other products to
WORK AROUND
LIMITATIONS”
51%
STATUS QUO
34%
27. Competitive Analysis
“IM is PRACTICAL BUT
INTERRUPTING.”
“GIVE USERS MORE CONTROL OVER
PERSONAL NOTIFICATIONS. Allow users to
unsubscribe from integrations on an individual basis”.
28. “Ideally all communication [...] should be
SEARCHABLE FROM A SINGLE
TOOL. CHAT COULD CREATE
EXTRA NOISE.”
29. “That’s OK. WE’LL IMPROVE
TRELLO’S SEARCH
FEATURES!”
“Ideally all communication [...] should be
SEARCHABLE FROM A SINGLE
TOOL. CHAT COULD CREATE
EXTRA NOISE.”
37. PERSONA 1
PAUL JOHNSON
Project Manager
34 years old, has a girlfriend
London
Works for a small company of 20 people for 6 years already and
needs and loves to travel the world with his girlfriend to balance
his stressful job.
“Good communication
needs structure”
38. PERSONA 2
EMMA CASSIDY
Senior Graphic Designer
28 years old, Single
London
She is about start a new job in the company that Paul works in.
Emma loves to read books and Design magazines, but most of
all she loves to spend time with her friends.
“The best tool to organise don’t have the
best features to communicate or
save documents.”
45. IDEAS
POSITION:
- integrated into menu bar
- multiple chat boxes at bottom
CHAT ON SPECIFIC
TOPIC/SOURCES:
- generated from cards in lists
- shown in the right bar
46. IDEAS
POSITION:
- integrated into menu bar
- multiple chat boxes at bottom
CHAT ON SPECIFIC
TOPIC/SOURCES:
- generated from cards in lists
- shown in the right bar
BETTER SEARCH & FINDS
- bookmarks
- more detailed filter on
REDUCE NOISE:
- status
- notifications
53. ALLOW TRELLO TO INTEGRATE
BETTER WITH OTHER CHATS
REDUCE FURTHER NOISE
Turn long messages into posts
EXTRACT PARTS OF CHAT TO
SEND
E. g. results to clients
HASHTAGS
Jump straight to a card chat. Create and manipulate
cards from the chat window.
FUTURE STEPS
54. “My team uses Slack, yours uses HipChat,
WHAT DO WE DO?”
55. “Trello ALREADY GENERATES EMAIL
ADDRESSES
FOR TASKS. Why not IM users also? It could broadcast users
messages to each other”
“My team uses Slack, yours uses HipChat,
WHAT DO WE DO?”
Editor's Notes
In this presentation
We will walk you through
What our research found and what we solved
Our Design Process
Our Prototype for the new features
Some future steps
First a quick recap on the brief
Just a quick recap: your brief mentioned that…
Conversations surrounding boards and resources is often lost.
Create a better chat feature for individuals collaborating with Trello
The first thing we looked for was what the demand for this feature was. Then why.
Good news!
People want a chat tool
We performed a survey and 64% of said YES to having a chat feature on Trello
An old feature request on Trello.com had 1700 votes for this feature
There is even already a browser plugin for this with some very basic features.
What problems might this chat feature need to address?
Good news!
People want a chat tool
We performed a survey and 64% of said YES to having a chat feature on Trello
An old feature request on Trello.com had 1700 votes for this feature
There is even already a browser plugin for this with some very basic features.
What problems might this chat feature need to address?
Our survey found that people prefer to communicate
Face-to-face, then by
email, then by
instant-messaging.
Due to limitations.
Some of these problems could not be solved with a chat feature - e.g. the ‘formality’ of emails. However, others, like organising information better could be.
Our survey found that people prefer to communicate
Face-to-face, then by
email, then by
instant-messaging.
Due to limitations.
Some of these problems could not be solved with a chat feature - e.g. the ‘formality’ of emails. However, others, like organising information better could be.
We observed a user trying Trello for the first time.
She found it really easy to use and had a design that was informative and useful but not overwhelming.
However: When interviewing a more experienced user we found that he preferred to use chat products that receive information from Trello rather than using Trello card-comments itself.
This is because the Comments system in Trello has room for improvement.
Conversations are mixed in with card activity.
If you add other items like checklists and attachments they push comments off screen -you have to scroll far to see them.
More general conversations that are not card-related cannot happen elsewhere.
No integrations within Trello for other products besides email -you can generate an email address for posting comments on a card.
You can’t message users directly or privately.
Removed cluttered sidebar
Introduced Accordions
Moved feed to the side.
Added an integrations option.
Introduced optional filters for the
Activity feed
Chat messages
Integrations
We performed a feature comparison with competitor products and chat services and asked users what features they find most essential when collaborating.
We used this data during the ideation phase to help define and prioritise what needed addressing.
We looked at a whole bunch.
Trello
Jira
HipChat
Slack
Google Hangouts
Taiga
Slack was the clear winner.
Why?
Great features!
Desktop toasts
Two levels of Toast notification:
When my name is mentioned
When keywords are mentioned.
Colours and numbers on channels to signify unread messages.
Bookmarks for things you want to remember.
Good searching features.
Comment on attachments.
Colours and numbers on channels to signify unread messages.
Bookmarks for things you want to remember.
Good searching features.
Comment on attachments.
Colours and numbers on channels to signify unread messages.
Bookmarks for things you want to remember.
Good searching features.
Comment on attachments.
You could set up a slack channel to integrate with and receive messages from other services. Not just Trello boards
but GitHub, DropBox, Google Drive and almost any project management tool.
And lots of customisation.
To find this out we asked to main research questions...
When people work together, whether on Trello, or using similar tools…
How do they communicate?
How does communication get lost?
“I need an audit trail or others to know whats going on”
Need for instant replies
“I need an audit trail or others to know whats going on”
Need for instant replies
We also examined the layout of these applications to get an idea of how we might be able to integrate this feature successfully into Trello.
There were some notable differences in the design patterns they used.
Some applications were designed to be used full-screen e.g.
HipChat
Slack
These both use toast notifications to keep the user updated when out of context.
Some designed to be used while viewing information not related to messaging.
Multiple windows for different chat sessions
Facebook - Also offers a full-screen chat window for more access to sessions / greater amount of information.
Google Hangouts
MSN Messenger (rest in peace)
Hubbr - a Chrome plugin that adds chat to Trello offers both - Though it has a very limited feature set.
We also examined the layout of these applications to get an idea of how we might be able to integrate this feature successfully into Trello.
There were some notable differences in the design patterns they used.
Some applications were designed to be used full-screen e.g.
HipChat
Slack
These both use toast notifications to keep the user updated when out of context.
Some designed to be used while viewing information not related to messaging.
Multiple windows for different chat sessions
Facebook - Also offers a full-screen chat window for more access to sessions / greater amount of information.
Google Hangouts
MSN Messenger (rest in peace)
Hubbr - a Chrome plugin that adds chat to Trello offers both - Though it has a very limited feature set.
We also examined the layout of these applications to get an idea of how we might be able to integrate this feature successfully into Trello.
There were some notable differences in the design patterns they used.
Some applications were designed to be used full-screen e.g.
HipChat
Slack
These both use toast notifications to keep the user updated when out of context.
Some designed to be used while viewing information not related to messaging.
Multiple windows for different chat sessions
Facebook - Also offers a full-screen chat window for more access to sessions / greater amount of information.
Google Hangouts
MSN Messenger (rest in peace)
Hubbr - a Chrome plugin that adds chat to Trello offers both - Though it has a very limited feature set.
“My team uses Slack, yours uses HipChat,WHAT DO WE DO?”
Trello ALREADY GENERATES EMAIL ADDRESSESFOR TASKS. Why not IM users also? It could broadcast users messages to each other
Mixed communication streams - need to filter them.