How to explain Issue Types?

Issue Types are easy to understand, but not so easy to explain.

I usally use examples like "Booking Room" and "Feature" and explain in a longer run the differences in workflow and needed informations - screens.

The most short explaination I found: Issue Types are types of processes.

But does that fit? Does it explain the whole meaning of Issue Types?

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I tend to use "Issue types are an indication of the most defining kind of information you hold to want to hold about an issue". Not "important", but "defining". This is because the issue type can be used to define how an issue behaves.

Think of the difference between using a single issue type of "Pet" and several that are "dog", "cat", "bunny", "horse", "fish" and "snake". They all have a lot in common - a need for food and shelter, and they're all companions of some sort for a human. But they have different characteristic (fields), different needs (more like attributes that you need to take care of) and, let's say you're tracking a day in the life of your pet as a Jira issue, then a different workflow.

The dog needs a workflow that includes sleeping, being fed morning, being walked, some fuss, being fed evening, but the cat needs status like sleeping, food bowl refill (not necessarily eating, just a refill), nap 1, wander round garden, nap 2, do something to annoy the humans, and so-on.

There are better analogies, but I like my cat, and want a dog.

So, you hang all those things off what the "issue type" is.