giant robots smashing into other giant robots
Written by thoughtbot
Episode #30: Giant Year-End Extravaganza
In this special episode to kick off 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Chad Pytel, the CEO of thoughtbot, to take a look back at some of the things thoughtbot did in 2012. They then answer a bunch of listener questions.
Trajectory Gets Campfire Integration
Mission Control: The Trajectory blog:
I’m very pleased to announce the availability of Campfire integration with Trajectory.
This was one of our most requested outstanding features from customers, and like most things in Trajectory, it’s something we’re going to use the heck out of ourselves.
We hope you enjoy it!
The Rhythm Method
One of our goals for Trajectory is to provide a guided path to a better way to develop software. When possible, we let that influence the way Trajectory works.
Iterations are each one week.
Trajectory doesn't have an icebox
The icebox is a place where stories go to die. It’s typically used to hold two kinds of stories:
- Features that need more discussion or planning before they can be started
- Features that are currently out of scope or very low priority
Read the full post on the Trajectory blog, Mission Control.
A users guide to the Trajectory redesign
We released a redesign to the Trajectory UI today. I want to explain the thinking that went into the redesign, what the benefits to users are, and what’s in store for Trajectory as we move forward.
View of the main stories index.
First, let’s do a quick history lesson. A year and a half ago, we decided to build Trajectory to scratch our own itch. We wanted a lightweight agile project management tool that had a strong focus on discussions, both for the stories being worked on, as well as for longer term planning. The original design for the Trajectory UI emerged out of an iterative process, and evolved as we learned more about the product over the course of its development.
This redesign was a chance to take stock of what’ve we learned through that process, and lay the groundwork for the future. The most obvious change is the lighter color scheme. We’d heard continual feedback that people found it difficult to quickly scan through stories because of the dark color scheme. The new UI fixes this problem and provides a more pleasant experience for extended, daily use.
Next, we designed the UI to respond better to differing screen sizes. If you have a large monitor, the site will expand to use the space available to it. Shrink your window down, and the site remains just as usable. There’s more work to be done, but the long term goal is to serve a single web-based interface to all devices, whether it’s a 27” display or your mobile device.
There are a number of other UI improvements. We’ve improved the searching and filtering of stories. (Pro tip: hit the f key to enter search mode.)
The new search interface.
It’s now easier to estimate and re-estimate stories.
The new story estimation UI.
You can also quickly see the progress on stories created from an Idea.
Progress of stories attached to an idea.
We also performed a heavy refactoring/rewriting of the front-end markup and style. We were able to eliminate and simplify substantial portions of the front-end code, which should hopefully translate to snappier performance within the browser.
Trajectory is going to be a very important part of what thoughtbot does in 2012. If you haven’t done so yet, sign up for a free trial and see what we’re so excited about.
