@seltzered i absolutely get the need for accessibility awareness -- my flavor of ADHD makes me especially prone to seeing anything as background noise, and any number above 5 cards in a list starts to become background noise for me. I just wish that whoever's in charge of this particular feature switch actually reached out to the users that use this power-up to see how they could make it better. It's not like I have email notifications turned on because it's a communication tool or anything.
As someone with ADD who has been using Trello to keep their life intact, I have to say that several of the changes I've seen lately make things FAR more difficult for us. We need a system that has features that assist us in working with ADD, instead of against it. When you remove features that we count on and/or change a process, especially if it adds MORE steps, it's like a gut punch and only strengthens the likelihood of failure and task confusion. Card Aging was invaluable to me in so many ways.
The extra steps of having to "enable" power ups is annoying as well. All of these things should just be features of the program and not ones that you have to add yourself--or god forbid, pay EXTRA for. Adding power ups is also annoying because the list repopulates every time you click one to add it. You can't easily go right back to the screen you were on before adding the power up and have everything be in the same place. It's time consuming to have to scroll through it all again and again each time. And don't get me started on a delete function not just being built in. Every other project management app I've used has one, AND archiving.
The ability to easily add and name your lists whatever you want is absolutely the best way for me to organize Kanban boards, and to not be confined to only a few types of list sets like "Not started", "In Progress" or "Completed" is the only thing that has kept me from switching entirely to ClickUp or other software. Customizing it CAN be done, I think, but it's far more time-consuming and has a bit of a learning curve.
If ClickUp's new features as they transition to the 3.0 version will solve some of these problems for me, then I will officially move and close down Trello for good. It's a great idea with a better list structure than some others, but it's frustratingly limited, can be clunky to use, and has worn down my patience.
This is, in a word, really stupid. Introducing filters (an active feedback system) in no way replicates the functionality of Card Aging (a passive feedback system).
You want me to click more things in order to have to piece together the context of all cards in my head? Absolutely not. Having to actually navigate into a sidebar, check a card activity filter, and remember what cards where thereand in which orderrather than the tried-and-true, visual feedback Aging provides, basically guarantees for me (and i'm sure many others) that card activity as a metric is no longer accessible or even usable in the context of a real board.
In kanban workflows, cards are ordered in lists so that things may take priority or show progression/working order within a list. Your "replacement" for Card Aging in these activity filters removes the context of the list from each card fitting the filter, as though you were using a search function. That means users will no longer be able to see (without tracking previous list views in their minds) whether cards with long periods without activity are sitting in the middle of cards with very recent activity. Entire use cases for card activity data are completely nullified by sunsetting Card Aging, which guarantees that the activity data for cards is reflected directly in the context of the list. That's imperative.
Importantly, the Atlassian Team comment above mentions that filters are supposed to work in a myriad of color themes.... That may be the absolute dumbest justification for this idiotic change. Card Aging already works in all color themes, partly because all it does is lower cards' opacity toward the background over time. That means within the bounds of the Power-Up's lower opacity limit, you will always see the card coordinated with the color scheme, and be able to read it, and be able to parse card activity history simply by reading the board.
I honestly cannot see any valid justification for removing this feature in favor of a simply inferior and ill-suited stand-in for one of Trello's most useful tools.
This isn't a suitable replacement for card ageing - please don't remove it.
I can't say I've enjoyed the recent updates to Trello - I've relied on it's functionality being a constant in my work... now it seems to be a moving target.
I just noticed warning about removing the card aging power-up and I'm also very disappointed about this decision. I don't want to repeat all of the comments written above, so I'll just emphasize that the new filters are not functionally equivalent to the plugin. They reduce the general clarity of the workload and high level perspective while offering real value only in specific scenarios (not applicable in my team's context).
While I'm also not a fan of the new visual theme, since it feels like a step backwards in terms of productivity (takes too much space), that part is easily avoidable by applying custom styles. Negative implications created by getting rid of entire power-up are far more impactful.
This is a really silly regression that fundamentally misunderstands why people use card ageing and what they like about it. Just read the comments above please, they are withering and really well articulated. please change your minds before sunsetting this with only a few weeks notice.
I've already added my two cents on this, but I'd like to add some details that too many developers just aren't paying attention to (or are told to ignore by non-developers, for all I know). If you REALLY want to be a top-notch project management software with the bulk of market share, you need to do several things:
1. DO NOT dismiss your audience and customers, I dont care what technological issues you're facing.
2. DO NOT FORGET that people who use productivity software are trying to make things work smarter and faster for them, NOT harder and more time-consuming. It is anathema to your product's purpose.
3. DO NOT ignore the fact that project management software can be and is used for someone's WHOLE life schedule and tasks, and not just for business purposes.
4. DO NOT overlook the fact that there are many types of neuroprogramming and divergence, and that there are a LOT more of us "divergent" than anyone realizes (mostly because people don't think it's "real" and still try to force us to do everything the "standard" way, whatever THAT is). Removing tools and/or not even considering what tools would be useful to EVERYONE and not the average Type A businessperson is a massive mistake.
Creating something that works beautifully in consideration of people on all neuro spectrums would instantly gain you a lot of fans--and paying customers. The "perfect" (as close as that could be) project and task management program is literally a holy grail for people like us. The first one who does it properly will make a fortune.
Adding my hat to the ring of people who will be negatively affected by this change. Disappointed. And I don't see a single comment that is actually positive and looking forward to the change either.
@Michael Heikka@Ellie Kulick Thanks for providing that insight. I'm Glad Trello is interested in accessibility and dark/light themes. Could this power-up be configured also to do those things so people can continue to access this power-up in their current workflows instead of depreciating it? It seems many people appreciate the current functionality of the card.
Either way, you mentioned third-party integrations offering "age-based views." I had trouble finding any free alternatives for this function. Can you provide some? It'd be unfortunate to have to pay for an option because a Trello Sponsored power-up was deprecated.
Card ageing (and Pirate mode in particular!) was one of the key differentiators between Trello and rival products that meet the same use case (such as Microsoft Planner, which actually integrates better with our infrastructure, and is free for us on our license). Card ageing was one of the key reasons I selected Trello for my team over the Microsoft product we already own - being able to see at a glance which tasks are being neglected is an essential tool for us.
I am in complete agreement with the rest of the community comments above, and am feeling the same anger and disappointment. Replacing an 'always-on' visual cue across our entire backlog with a filter that we have to manipulate in order to provide a view of a subset of tasks defined by criteria that Atlassian thinks are 'useful' to us is not equivalent functionality at all.
Respectfully, please reconsider the deprecation of this functionality. Please don't take away one of the main reasons that we use your software.
This is bad. I have been relying on this to have a quick look (1 second) at what tasks are not progressing.
The Filter feature is ineffective - it takes 4-5 keystrokes to get to it, and there are no options to filter by "sitting time" like Card Aging
Update: I just read somewhere that Trello has 1 million active users. Number may be approx. but it's likely large. With only less than 100 comments here as of 6.6.2023 opposing the removal of Card Aging, I guess Trello will just brush this issue aside and ignore these people anyway.
Depreciating card aging is a silly decision. When I onboard new teams, it's one of the first power ups I recommend. It's incredibly useful which is why it's the third most used in our Enterprise instance. What are you thinking with this decision?
I appreciate the work that goes into development and progress, but I prefer Card Ageing. I don't want to have to click a load of manual filter options. I want to glance at the board and see what's looking old. I also think it looks very nice. It is pleasant on the eye and allows you to interpret based on colour or opacity. The solid opaque cards stand out beautifully, yet the fading cards remain visible and legible. It worked. I feel like you've fixed something that wasn't broken. I doubt I will use the new tool, I will just learn to live without Card Ageing.
Couple of updates from my end. I understand that the unbelievable response to this post has got the attention of those within Atlassian. Whether that will change anything, I don't know...
I also don't think the current Trello API will allow changes to the styling of the entire card front like the Card Ageing power-up does, possibly only accessible within Trello in order to create the card ageing power-up, so even if a powerup developer decided to take this on, it wouldn't be as visually noticeable as what we currently have
Lastly, card ageing is true to the spirit of Trello...Functional, visual, easy to use and fun. If we wanted something complicated and serious, we'd use Jira 😂
A visual cue is extremely easy to understand. Having to actively filter all cards defeats the purpose of doing this briefly and is easy to forget that feature is there.
If you eliminate this feature, you will hurt users and your business.
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