The end of an era: bidding farewell to Trello's original theme

58 comments

Luciano Pizatto June 19, 2023

Bom dia...
Uma pena esta mudança da paleta das cores.
Meus trabalhos de mais de 1 ano, onde em uma metodologia ágil as cores primárias dominavam minha visão e workflow agora tudo jogado fora.

Att.

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Thomas Kailer
Contributor
June 19, 2023

Your product is supposed to let users keep track of their tasks. To let us feel safe and confident with shuffling around tasks and still keep a firm grip on things.

The vibrant, strong colors with their contrast helped with that - a lot.

 

But now, with the new theme: This feeling of security and confidence is gone for me.

When I look at my boards now, I feel lost. And this is endangering my productivity and the quality of my work.

 

This is not just a matter of getting used to it.

I, and from what I read here, and many others used colors as a function, and not as a design element.

Now a design decision impairs the functionality of your product.

 

You pride yourself in working to create a product that enables the user to be productive, efficient, creative.

By forcing me to use the new theme you just made me less productive, efficient, and creative.

 

I personally do like changes in software - it can keep the user experience fresh.

But there are only so many ways to deal with a situation one ist not satisfied with: Love it, change it, or leave it.

I do not love it. And since you did not take the user feedback into account and implemented the theme anyway, I/we cannot change it. So ...

 

I'll wait a bit. Maybe the option to chose themes comes back.

If not: I won't.

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Jenna Grimshaw
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June 19, 2023

I agree with everyone here.  Original card colors were bright and beautiful and easily differentiated among them.  I absolutely hate the new card colors.  Original card colors should at least be an option.  I will be looking for new software options now.  

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Stephanie Haynes
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June 20, 2023

The new color palette in Trello doesn't work for me. I like the other colors, which stood out more to me and were effective in identifying reminders/essential tasks. Why not keep both color palettes so people can choose?

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Carlos Terrazas
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June 20, 2023

I don't want the new themes. I want the original theme. can you activate it again please. The new theme is horrible, it is very curved. I do not like. I need the original theme.

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Matt Huyck
Contributor
June 21, 2023

Brandon Harris summarizes what's wrong with the new colors quite succinctly. Trello designers would do well to learn from the feedback he gives as well as listening to the many many users with negative feedback here and elsewhere in the community forums.

Cynthia Brewer and Mark Harrower have created a tool for picking color palletes that Trello's designers might want to peruse to get a sense of how to do this right. This sort of research-based design is valuable to the people who use your software:

  https://colorbrewer2.org/#type=sequential&scheme=BuGn&n=3

I worry that product managers for Trello actually do know better, have seen all of the negative feedback and simply don't care, but I am hoping this is more of a case of ignorance instead.

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Mac Potter
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June 22, 2023

If this thread doesnt make it obvious I dont know what will - TRELLO - bring back the old version. I will leave this platform for Monday or ClickUp or one of the MANY MANY other options out there. This is practically unusable.

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Ian Graham June 23, 2023

This new theme causes the cards to overlap, meaning we can't read the card title or see anything at a glace other than part of the cover image. How can we fix this so that the entire card can be seen when scrolling through a list?

 

Screen Shot 2023-06-23 at 3.10.46 PM.png

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Sal
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June 23, 2023

Hey @Ian Graham! If you're experiencing this problem with your lists when using the new themes, try clearing your browser's cache and cookies (If you're using the web app) or reinstalling the Trello app (If you're using the Desktop app) by following the steps mentioned here: https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/how-to-uninstall-the-trello-desktop-app/.

If none of these steps work, you can submit a ticket with us at https://trello.com/contact, and we'll be happy to help! 

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Ian Graham June 23, 2023

@Salomao RosaDeleting and reinstalling the app worked, thank you!

unitycoder
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June 27, 2023

RIP screen space :( this is unusable.
What alternatives others suggest?
I'm thinking could just use Github Issues & Projects for now.

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Alberto Heredia
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June 27, 2023

I find Trello really helpful to organize my tasks, but I've read many negative comments regarding the new colors and I agree. It's even more disappointing when discovering that some colors, such as yellow, are not equal in the mobile app and the desktop app (I scarcely distinguish yellow from orange in the second one). And the palette in the mobile app is much more restricted, so some colors allowed in the desktop app and the website are not allowed there! Is it so difficult to allow customized colors using HEX notation? Some improvement is needed, please.

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Maria Krasnova
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June 27, 2023

I really need the original theme back as now all the cards are messed up, and I don't know how to change that....what should I do?

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Peter C
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June 27, 2023

Are we likely to get any response from Trello on this? Do they even read these comments?

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David Bakkers
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June 28, 2023

Hello @Ellie Kulick 

The documentation for Trello's REST API endpoints for creating and updating labels have not been updated and still only describe the original 10 colors.

It also doesn't describe that the new colors have to be referenced by appending '_light' or '_dark' to the ends of the 10 base color names.

Also, using different terms for the color names in the REST API compared to the GUI (IE 'light' vs 'subtle'), it just makes a developer's life more difficult.

Vicki Verona
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June 29, 2023

The colours are fine imo, but you haven't updated the automation tools to allow all of these to be used, the dark (ugly) versions are the only ones selectable but as I like to use the bright hues it means a lot of my automation cannot include these. Will you be updating the automation so these can be selected, recognised and used?

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Sal
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June 29, 2023

Hey @David Bakkers! I've already passed your feedback to our team about the missing light and dark colors to our API docs. I appreciate your taking the time to share your feedback about it. 

@Vicki Verona! The Automation commands will only show the labels you currently have on your board. So, if you have only labels using dark colors, only these colors will appear. You'll need to update the labels to the light version first, and then they'll reflect on being used on your Automation command. If you need any assistance, you can submit a ticket to us at https://trello.com/contact, and we'll be happy to help! 

Brandon Harris
Contributor
June 29, 2023

Oh look! An official comment!  So they _are_ reading this, but not responding to the bulk of the comments here. That tells me a _lot_ about how much they seem to care about us plebeians.

I'm in the middle of a large project so it's difficult for me to push the resources at finding a replacement.  I spent a half an hour with ClickUp, which imports Trello data, but has a different format.  Has anyone else had any luck?

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Vicki Verona
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June 29, 2023

@Salomao Rosa That isn't true, I've tried many different ways to try and get that to work, it will only use 'base' colours, with a board button it will even make that tag instead of allowing you to use one you have

Sal
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June 30, 2023

Hey @Vicki Verona! I'm sorry the information I shared didn't work for you. If you're still having issues with the labels on your board using Automation, please reach out to us by opening a ticket at https://trello.com/contact, and we'll be happy to help! 

Sam
Contributor
June 30, 2023

The new Trello theme is an ill-thought out implementation.
It is obvious why quite a number of people are dissatisfied with it.
And I personally did not like it either, as the new changes created a negative impact on the experience of any one who has been using the platform for some time and got accustomed to a certain workflow.

It should be emphasized how the re-shaping and rounding of the cards and list space impeded the utility and visibility of the boards.

On the matter of colors, some - such as yellow, blue and black - do not correspond to how they are conventionally represented. Which is a mistake.

I, too, urge the developers to provide an option to switch back to the original theme.

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Ciel
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June 30, 2023

If you are unable to make a good change, you make no change to a mature product, though that makes you seems unworthy to be hired.

Rounded Corner Sucks. New Colours Sucks. Atlassian PM Sucks. You did not care the objections, did you?

Moving my & my teams' work out off Trello finally, after trucks of useless featrues.

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bruzelan
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July 13, 2023

Here another one that thinks the new colours are really terrible. I'm searching another app

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Ori
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September 4, 2023

So I was able to customize Trello's background ,but theme is too bright, had to modify 4 lines of CSS to change it using Inspect, but it won't save on refresh. Really that big of a deal to expose these few CSS variables and store a small CSS override for each board?

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Matt Huyck
Contributor
September 5, 2023

Hi @ori I agree it should be up to those of us who use Trello what colors we choose for labels. As you have seen, making CSS changes is all it takes, but we need a way to make them "stick." You and I are not the only ones who want that. I found an extension for Chrome written by SimplexShotz on GitHub here:

  https://github.com/SimplexShotz/Trello-Colors-Extension

My wife and I use Trello in Safari, so I tweaked the format of the extension a little to make it work with Userscripts. Anyone using Safari might find my fork useful:

  https://github.com/mhuyck/Trello-Colors-Extension

I hope this is helpful!

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