Circling Ourselves: The Story Behind Asana’s Rebrand
medium.comI've been using Asana for about two years as my work-related feature rich TODO list. I've learned that if I'm extremely diligent about putting tasks from my email inbox (or meetings, etc.) into Asana, then I don't have to ever worry about dropping tasks when things get hectic. For me, this is a pretty huge deal.
I'm very impressed by the introspection exhibited by the Asana team, illustrated by the following quote:
> [W]hen his friends introduce him to other people, they whisper: “Give the guy a chance; you’ll love him once you get to know him.”
Until this week, that’s how many of us felt about our brand and our product.
I've been on the sending end of this conversation very many times. Because of my success with Asana (and the fact that it's free), I've recommended the product to many people... and invariably been met with the same skepticism, based in the lack of a contemporary UI. I've convinced people to give it a shot anyway, but it was always a bigger road block than I would have imagined.
It's awesome that the Asana team realized this, and fixed it. I'm sort of indifferent to the UI at this point (although it does look nice), but I'm sure getting new users will be much easier from now on. Huge kudos to the Asana team!
Thanks a bunch, David! I was an Asana user for years before I joined the team, and this was always my experience too. So when I joined, I quickly popularized this metaphor. It kinda stuck. :)
The new look is nice. Sleeker, cleaner - nice. That said, the product feels a lot slower now. They added a lot of ajax-y elements, and something as simple as showing "Later" tasks on the "My tasks" page now takes up to 5 seconds to load (tested on multiple machines and networks).
Also, Asana didn't _really_ need a new coat of paint. It needed (and needs!) a _fundamental_ UX/UI re-thinking. It still feels just as clunky to use as ever - it just looks a bit fresher.