Feedback about new Trello layout

Question

This isn't a question as much as feedback about the new layout, I hope someone sees this. My team and I REALLY don't like the new Trello update. It's not working for us, it has truly only made things a lot more inconvenient and slow for us in like pretty much every way.

The "inbox" being on the left of the screen at all times is really annoying, I don't see a way to get rid of it, but please let me know if I've missed something! We use trello for the boards, I have absolutely no need for an "inbox" on this app. Now this totally annoying and unnecessary "inbox" pop up is cutting into the board space, so we can't see as many columns laid out on my board at once. This creates more scrolling and makes it harder to get a big picture of what's going on day to day.

It's also incredibly inconvenient to have to click a separate button to get to the automations on a card instead of them just being right there ready to go. Why would you create extra clicking? Why would we want that? We also hate that the comments and activities section is on the right now, it all just flowed a lot better before.

In general, everything was much better before and I really wish we could go back to that. Is there a way to use the old format still?

I'm really considering switching to a different project management software at this point due to these incredibly inconvenient changes. It makes our workflow a lot slower and the point of trello is to streamline the workflow. So this new design is actually actively working against the entire purpose of the product. Please please please change it back. We are begging.

unknown · Answer

Unfortunately in our work it is very inconvenient that when you open the “tab” the comments section has moved to the right hand side, until now the comments were underneath, this was definitely more convenient for us, this form also showed more of the comment content without unnecessary scrolling. Is there any chance that people who already have this new view will be able to go back to the previous one, and people who still have the old view will be able to keep it ?

ACE_3v09ov · Answer

@Tess Greenham It's hard to miss the new (and in my opinion poorly placed) floating menu, from where you can deactivate and activate the new panels as @Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting  tells you, haha.

Mike - Dreamsuite Consulting · Answer

Hi @Tess Greenham

I think the feedback is welcomed but my hunch is that it wont go back to the old one because is being re-positioned as an individual productivity app.  That's not to say your team/project use case is no longer relevant but the features will prioritise the individual productivity use case.

To answer the biggest annoyance, you can close the inbox as shown below:

It is also worth directing you to this article, in the coming weeks, the ability to pin the board switcher to the left side (like in the old version) is coming to this version and I think that will help A LOT!

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Trello-articles/Board-Navigation-changes-based-on-Community-feedback/ba-p/3040942

Regarding the 2 clicks to get to automation buttons, I totally understand and it seems to be a common complaint on the community. The Trello team are analysing the feedback on here and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a possible change to this, perhaps pinning a certain number of buttons or power-ups (I'm speculating in hope).

Personally, I have always favoured other ways instead of buttons because I do a lot of actions without opening the card and actually the card buttons have a delay before doing what they should...
I recommend you subscribe to my pal @Brittany Joiner newsletter here because next weeks post may just have the workaround you're looking for...👀

As you can see from the post above, the changes they are making come as a result of community and user feedback. So keep providing the feedback, it definitely increases the chances of changes you want being made.  I know that doesn't help when you thought it was pretty much perfect in the first place...

Regarding looking for alternatives, I don't discourage this at all.  I don't work for Atlassian and therefore I can give you my honest opinion on this...A tool is designed to support your workflow and if Trello no longer does this, it may be that you have to look elsewhere. As someone who has been in the game of business tools for a long time, I can say it may be less pain to find a way to make the new Trello fit your workflow thank looking for a new tool.  I am not discouraging it by any means but the truth is every bit of software is flawed and there is a chance that it may become more complicated.

Atlassian would like you to outgrow Trello and migrate to Jira, it certainly may be worth looking at Jira, not because it would be a direct replacement to Trello but because the migration may be the path of least friction...Most of Jira's most recent features were stolen from Trello too 😂