Roadmap UX feature suggestion Drag & drop
I have been using Gitlab over a year as a product manager, I really really love gitlab the Labels, Search, Epics, Issues, Weights and the boards!! However until recently we needed to implement a roadmap. I have to say the Gitlab roadmap UX is bad, it's confusing and at the worst is its repetitive. I was frustrated to a point I had to create this issue, if the repetitive issue is resolved at least I would be happy.
I will present 3 specific issues I have with Gitlab Roadmap UX and I will be detail as possible with screenshots below.
- User cannot Adjust/Sort Epics by time
- User Cannot Sort By Categories
- Colors of many Epic
Anyways I written out specific examples as shown in the UX steps below
Before that I want to explain, How I understand Roadmaps, its not just for developers but for other business units, announcement for new features, and promotional planning for new features, and overall business decisions resource allocation etc. Its communicate to others and to get feedback at the sametime and establish a outlook or a vision. Believe me Roadmaps are a great tool to Set expectations and avoid disappointment to many parties involved including customers. For example if I purchase a video game and they released a roadmap that ensures me as a customer the studio is not going out of business and more is still to come, this provides a level of engagement & excitement and customers returning to the project. A more in-depth explanation would be this video.
Adjusting Epics by time
Let me you present you a real use case I am in roadmap meeting and Developer says we have to extend this Epic by a month or move that specific epic to the next month.
Current UX design
1) I will have to click the Epic
2) I am redirect to the epic which replaced my roadmap that I was sharing on-screen in front of everyone at the meeting
3) Move to right hand side as I am trying to remembering what the date was click edit
4) Move/click through the calendar to the month and day I am looking for double check the date.
5) Then I need to go to Due date and remember and not forgot while people keep talking what's the end date
6) Find the month again even though I already moved the start date
7) then after its fixed I have to go back to the road map across the screen
8) Wait for the roadmap to load and imagine a roadmap here because its not loading any of my epics for some reason
I will use a old screenshot
Conclusion on the Old Design
You could be thinking that's not so bad it works! well try to imagine for a moment you have to organize many developers and sales people all at once. Which we have over 20+ Epics or 100+ Sub epics that we have to adjust on this roadmap/timetable and then iterate these steps above over 100s of times in your head then you can understand why I am bringing this issue up. Its too many clicks, its too much time to simply adjust a object on a timetable. I immediate went to a different solution because its too time consuming. Frustrating when it breaks.
The UX Solution
1. I go in on the Roadmap with the cursor
2. I hover my mouse at the edge & the cursor changes to a grab Icon thus telling me I am able to move the Epic across time/space or extend the epic's time. The calendar should update in the background if I go directly to the epic.
3. I let go of where the epic was moved thus stating a new time for that epic. Then move on to the next topic in discussion thus saving me time and energy.
Issue 2 - Cannot Sort By Categories
On the left had side Roadmap Categories can only be made through Epics which is find however I cannot organize the Epics or drag&drop the order of Epics, or simply drag epics into another epics to become sub epics.
if my 7th Epic down is a priority number 1 I cannot move it up
3) Color of Epic There is blue box and all the Epics are blue and labels don't appear I cannot tell the difference and the team I am presenting to cannot tell the differences between Epics
And this is not new problem PMs in videos from GitLab Unfiltered 2 years ago think the SubEpics look inactive, confusing and tedious How is feedback from 2 years ago ignored? With the same exact issues
Final thoughts
What I am saying is the UX on the roadmap its User Experience doesn't accurately reflect the User's reality, yes it works from a functional standpoint but from a usability and interactivity point of view is failing as a feature.