I think a better title for this article would be "How monstrosities get written".
2,454 karma · joined March 6, 2010
This is what we use at http://flow.io and it works well for us. The instant visual feedback is addictive, and a lot of users click the tabs to learn more about our app. Our bounce rate is very very low. Another interesting thing about this control scheme is that users often click the tabs in the intended order (from left to right) so you can reveal what your app does in easily digestible bite-size chunks.
"In designing the cockpit, we worked with the project pilot who went through system by system with each of the engineers in order to whittle down the number of discrete controls in order to justify every one that the engineer thought was necessary. In the flight control system the number of caution and warning indicators was reduced. Some of the engineers wanted a first level warning of every first level system, but we simplified the number of cautions and warnings. The objective, among other things was that it was a Navy airplane and the Navy didn’t want a pinball machine in the cockpit. They didn’t want a pilot being distracted while he’s being shot off the catapult." - Vincent Devino
"The Tomcat’s air-to-air weapons mix was just unmatched. The Phoenix gives you up to 110-mile range. It launches and...[after a programmed number of feet] the missile turns on its own radar where told to look. It was a launch-and-leave situation. You can launch six and track more than 30 targets. One step down was the Sparrow, at 20-25 miles. Then you step down to infrared sidewinder. Now you’re talking feet-you’ve got that 25-mm gun, with about 600 rounds of ammo, so you have a full minute of firing time. It was sort of a fighter pilot’s dream on an intercept [mission]. That capability has not been matched, and won’t be. We don’t have it anymore." - Charlie Brown
There is a 30-day free trial for paid plans (unlimited users and projects). Do you need a longer trial period?
As for per user pricing, a lot of vendors charge a much higher per user fee (four or five times as much), and they greatly lower their pricing as the number of users increase. I think charging a flat low fee is better because you pay a lot less when you are first starting out. There is also an annual payment option, which gives you two months free.
The user experience design is mine. Looking at the comments here, I see that some like the design and some not. Interesting divide.
kanban is a pull system. You pull work only when there is capacity to handle it. This works well in a factory setting because you know exactly how much capacity you have. In knowledge work, however, it is likely that you do not really know what your team is capable of because:
- Knowledge work is invisible and highly variable.
- Most of the time everyone is working on everything.
- There is a hidden but significant cost of task switching caused by multitasking.
If you want to know your team's capacity, you have to limit the number of tasks they work on at the same time. This is called a Work In Progress (WIP) limit in kanban. Once you limit WIP, several interesting things will happen:
- A backlog of tasks will emerge.
- You will be able to measure how much time is spent on each task.
- Tasks will get finished faster.
The first two results are not very surprising because by introducing WIP limits, you have effectively eliminated multitasking, but how on earth, do tasks get finished faster?
- Unlike computers with multiple processor cores, our brains have one or at best two cores. Without WIP limits, when there are too many tasks to work on, we spend more time on switching tasks than the tasks themselves.
- Bottlenecks become visible. Since everyone is working on a limited number of tasks, some finish theirs on time, some get overloaded, and some cannot finish their work because they need input from those who are overloaded.
- Team members with free capacity can help those who are overloaded. Better yet, they can even come up with ideas on how to fix the newly discovered bottlenecks.
Could you tell me which areas of flow's UI needs work?
* Detailed metrics: You can filter by user, user group, or task type. * You can go back in time and see how your board looked like anytime in the past. * Multiple users can be assigned to a task. * Search everything posted on your board including comments.
I believe flow.io solves a number of painful project management problems such as extensive upfront planning, making accurate estimates and manual time-tracking. So, word-of-mouth should be enough to find customers in the beginning.