The 'Add issue' button functionality in project Boards is not clear

Problem

The "Add issue" button raises an empty state modal (for issues) even though my project has issues. I also expected the button to be the way to create a new issue from the board but it seems that this is not the case.

Related issue: #23233 (closed)

Description

As I was working on my project board I clicked on "Add issue" in order to create a new issue. I got a modal with an empty state informing me that I haven't added any issues to my project yet, which was surprising as I had already created 5 issues.

It was pointed out to me that if the Open issues column is empty, GitLab doesn't detect any issues. However, all my project issues are in a column called "Ready" and the column "Open" is empty and collapsed as it doesn't fit my workflow and I do not use it. The UX is a bit confusing and unclear here.

Overall, it is not clear what the "Add issue" button does and how it is used (at least without reading the docs).

What is the current bug behavior?

If there are no issues in the Open list of my Board, but there are issues in other lists, when I click on "Add issue" I get a modal informing me that I don't have any issues in my project.

What is the expected correct behavior?

To be discussed.

Relevant logs and/or screenshots

Possible fixes

I propose to do some user research for what functionality users need here.