Trello dreams coming true today… more label colors available!

[Lori]

@Brittany Joiner Brittany, I'm really frustrated now, and I hope you take this feedback to heart. You wrote an article extolling the virtues of new label colors, and incessantly u-rah-rahed about them throughout this comment thread, when you now say you don't even care if labels exist. That explains what a poor listener you've been to those of us with legitimate complaints about the changes. Your workflow is not the same as everyone else's workflow, nor is mine the same as everyone else's. I don't care that you don't care if Trello takes away labels and it wouldn't change your workflow. It would make a difference to my workflow. Your comment makes me feel like my concerns are being dismissed, when they are legitimate concerns, echoed by many people in this comment thread. Stop trying to convince us that the new colors are great and we should like them. Don't tell someone that if they like a feature of Trello they should go use another product instead. Stop trying to tell us all that we're wrong, as you have with so many of your comments. @Liam did a good job with his reply. I hope to hear more from him about how Trello can meet the needs of the people on this thread who are so disappointed with this change.

[Liam]

@Lori all very valid feedback, thank you. Regarding label accessibility, I appreciate your point. What we’ve heard consistently is that being able to quickly scan labels across a board is more important than individual label accessibility for many workflows. We’re actively digging into this pain point and looking for ways to provide a solution that is both accessible and easy to scan.

I’d also like to add that across our team, there is a ton of pride for “Trello’s fun, colorful appearance” and that is something we never intend to lose - in fact, we want to make that aspect of Trello even better! As per my original reply, we’ll be working hard to include more of you in future changes to ensure we capture feedback around specific changes sooner than later and to ensure we continue to deliver a product that people love to use.

[Brittany Joiner]

@Lori i'm really sorry i didn't mean to come off that way. I am excited for the new features primarily because my heart has stung every time someone comments that they are so frustrated that Trello doesn't have enough label color options, so I was really excited for this change because i hoped that would fix that. And I'm sorry if i came across more harsh than I meant it or like I wasn't listening, I promise I am listening as I get every single response to this in my inbox, and it just does wear on me a bit to see some of the comments on a tool that I've grown to love and has done so much for me so I think maybe that led to me responding a bit more "defensively" in my last comment, so I apologize for that. 

[Donna]

@Liam greatly appreciate your time to listen to us all - looking forward to what you and your team hope to find in bringing us all brighter outcomes [aka labels]

[Kiley Vorreiter]

Please bring back dark colors with bold white text options and make the dots an option. The dots just add clutter.

Every Monday, I open up my boards and say, "ugh." 

[Harjit Samra]

This is turning into a bit of a joke now.  The first time I saw these colours, I hated it and still do - and thought they would be able to reverted back to the original colours. 

Still waiting..

[Ami Fazchas]

@Brittany Joiner You've already been eloquently taken to task by many others for your dismissal of labels and workflows in your Sept 26th post. However, I also just want to chime in and agree with @Lori that your workflow may be simple enough that labels don't matter much to you, but the functionality of the labels and automations contingent on them is intrinsic to the workflow of many, many others. Including paying members like myself that pay extra every month to have access to more automation actions.

I get that you're some community leader or whatever, but perhaps its time to let actual atlassian employees handle this. 

[xmontero]

@LiamThanks for jumping in.

You stated in the last comment "We’re actively digging into this pain point and looking for ways to provide a solution that is both accessible and easy to scan."

I think is easier, simpler, better for the community and also better for costs of development from Atlassian's salary costs to stick to that idea of making dots optional and pale colors optional and rollback. And only after, think of new designs.

If your team "tries to dig deeper in this point and come to a better solution" a) it may take too much time, b) maybe the new solution is still an imperfect solution that still needs more iteration.

On the opposite side, making the dot "optional" and making the pale color "optional" is rather straight forward. Then the vast majority of us will be able to return to their "initial look and feel" still being "comptaible" for the ones that want a "more accessible solution".

We don't want to wait "for a new design" being "in the recent uncomfortable design". We want a rollback and be back to our helpful old system. Despite the "heat" in this thread seems to have cold for a few days, this does not mean we finally got used to those pale colors.

So, as said, thanks for jumping in, but now 2 questions for you and the team:

    a) Will you roll back to the previous color scheme while you take your time to your better new fresh final improved design?

    b) What date will be able to use the old color scheme?

(Hey! Expected datatypes of the responses: a) boolean = yes/no, b) date. Not a spiel).

PD: In addition there's information about the rollback process and the future deployments with forward-comptaibility that I'd love to share with you that I don't feel suitable for the public forum. I've already heard in this forum that my published rollback plan maybe was not suitable but, trust me, I've been coder for 40+ years and CTO of multi-million dollar companies for 20+ years and CEO of tech companies too. So I know what I'm talking about also from the coding costs point of view. But want to avoid any flare here in the public thread. Is there any way to PM you, @Liam ?

Thanks!
Xavi.

[Malin Hunter]

@xmontero Well said, I think you summed everything up perfectly and I hope they take you up on the offer of assistance.

@Liam,  as Xavi said, we haven't gotten used to the new labels, we are waiting! Can we please have an update as to where you are at, and an estimated date/timeframe for when we can expect the original labels to be restored.

Thank you

Malin

[Liam]

Thanks for jumping back in here @xmontero, appreciate the continued feedback and suggestions. At this time, we have no plans to roll back to the previous color scheme. I know that this is not the answer that you were hoping to hear but given your software experience, I'm sure you'll appreciate that these types of decisions are often far more complex than they appear on the surface. Our decision in this instance has less to do with engineering capability though and more to do with our overall design direction and prioritization.

That said, we continue to make solid progress towards a solution that we hope will improve the usability of labels while maintaining the accessibility and modernization goals that we have for Trello. As per my previous post, we're committed to collecting more feedback from all of you as we continue on this journey. With that in mind, I've set up a Calend.ly for anyone who would like to book some time together. During these sessions, I'd be keen to learn more about how you use Trello while also taking the opportunity to get some early signal on some of the directions we're exploring.

Sharing here so anyone on this thread who is interested can book some time: https://calendly.com/lgreig/trello-feedback-session

[Lori]

@Liam You can't at least get rid of the dots on the labels?

[VB]

@Liam That's incredibly disappointing to hear, but at least you've let us know sooner rather than later. I've already canceled my paid subscription and will now invest time in exploring other options since you've made it clear Trello doesn't care about the wants and needs of their current paying customers.

[Donna]

@VB If you find another that is compatible would you mind coming back into this forum and sharing an update...
I did do some research a few months ago across Assana>Team Management>ClickUp, ClickUp appeared as the closest to have the ability to execute the cards in similar manner, they also take there customer feedback seriously by listening to there needs as it reflects there constant upgading and developing of there program - promising!

[Malin Hunter]

 @Liam Thank you for your honesty.  

If you have no plans for a rollback I don't see how prioritisation comes into it, as the change we want is not in the running at all.  Would you kindly explain to us how the new labels are important in your design direction and why they are considered better in your view (it clearly differs from ours).

Could you also please tell us about the solid progress on the solution that will improve usability of existing labels. What is that solution? What will it look like?

Thank You

Malin

[xmontero]

Okey, if Atlassian does not listen the user-base then let's become free. If you guys help me gather a good community of 10.000+ future members and at least 50 volunteer coders, I'm ready to start and lead an OpenSource clone.

Plan:

• Self hosted => 100% free - Each company will be able to host it (it'll be open source!!)
• If I host it, help me somehow => Either a very small fee for server costs, either accept ads.

Anyone is feeling it?

[Harjit Samra]

So we now know that Trello has been well and truly absorbed into the big corp, and the users aren't really that important - just the top line figures on the balance sheet.

The early days of Trello, when developed by Joel Spolsky and his team (who built Trello for usability) are a distant memory.    

[Ian]

Has anyone else experienced being charged/upgraded without consent?  They have upgraded my account to Premium when the trial ended, without warning, and without me consenting to the upgrade.  They literally stole my money.

[Harjit Samra]

This fiasco has prompted me to start a trial of Monday.com.  It doesn't look as simple as Trello but getting a Kanban board is straight-forward and it looks much more advanced than Trello.

[Achim Bergmann]

We may be shifting our entire operations to Wrike instead of just a portion of our internal workflow because of this.  

[Harjit Samra]

The bigger message here is that Trello/Atlassian don't care about the users, and will do whatever they think is best, and make global changes to systems affecting all users - not a company I want to deal with.

[Donna]

@xmontero I believe Amazing Fields which is an add-on has already instigated the ability to get the old colours back on board - I have not looked into how they present as yet, I do use Cutom Fields for various things and our original dark deep colours still remain in this area of the cards so as previously mentioned I use this section for our level of priorities from a dropdown box which I've also created automations to change between the levels dependant of where the due date sits throughout the month along with cards moving from one list to another...

There is another option that I have been using most recent, you can make your Card COVER a particular colour which does present nicely is a loud way, it also has the option to include your heading which also present very big & bold, but the only issue with the latter is you don't get to see any of the other features on the card e.g. start/stop dates>Custom Fields...

[Lori]

@Donna I use those card cover colors to make cards that act as a header or divider within a list. Based on what @Liam said about the future of Trello colors, I'm guessing the bold colors we use today will be taken away. 

[Liam]

Hi all. I appreciate and understand that many of you remain frustrated with this change. Thank you for your continued feedback, we're taking it all on board. Contrary to what some commentators have suggested, the Trello team is committed to delivering a product that meets your needs. That is why come to work every day - to build a product that people love to use. 

I'd also like to reassure you all that we're incorporating all of your feedback into the next set of changes we plan to make - both for labels and any future design changes that may follow. Your voices are being heard!

Although I can't offer specific updates or timelines I would like to re-extend an invitation to meet and share your feedback live. I'd appreciate the opportunity to see how you're using Trello in your work and life and to share a few of the things we've been working on. I've set up a Calend.ly to make it easy to schedule time: https://calendly.com/lgreig/trello-feedback-session

I'll continue hanging around this thread and will share any additional updates as they happen. Thanks again for your continued passion for Trello and for all of your feedback. 

[VB]

@Liam That's the thing. You had created a product that I not only loved using, but depended on every single day. The functionality was altered without notice and you have informed us that you have no intention of bringing it back to it's former usable state. Now you expect us to continue to pay for a program that is less usable than before and wait patiently for your next update to see if that functionality is restored? How is that caring about what your community want's needs?

How would you feel if we came in and painted every room in your house without asking you what color you preferred? That's pretty much what you have done with our labels and it's not ok. Nothing short of restoring our labels to our previous color choices is an acceptable answer here.

[Malin Hunter]

@Liam Thanks again for responding to this thread.

I will participate in the live meeting to find out more.

I have accepted that no amount of us complaining is going to get the old lables back. It is disappointing that we are not given a clear answer to what the issue with that is, or what your design plan entails - as part of your design plan, are we going to wake up to a "new look" board , that like the labels, does not work for us.....?

So.... suggestions:  I'd like to see the card cover improved so you can see the custom fields etc. with the full card cover. I think this is where having the option of pastel colours (like new labels) could be beneficial.  

I would also like to see different font options for the lables and font colours . I have changed all my lables (and I have a lot) to capitals but I still struggle to read the fine black font - it is far from being as clear as the white on a deep coloured background (old labels). Perhaps also an option of bold.  And as many of us have requested please get rid of the dots!

It would also be good to have the option of seeing the full labels on the mobile version. 

Thanks