We’re working on a new Kanban plugin that will be more feature rich than the existing theme component and give us a more solid foundation on which to build and improve going forward.
Some of the features we’re planning for this new plugin include:
Allow admins to create and configure boards with a purpose built UI
Allow cards to be sorted by priority within columns on a board
Allow floating cards to be created without topics
Allow admins to control different levels of access to boards to specific users and groups
You can see an example of this new plugin in action here on meta now:
Something I’m wondering about as we get closer to publicizing this more widely is the name.
kanban
This is what we’ve been calling it going all the way back to the theme component that’s been out for some time. It feels a bit jargon-y to me, but on the other hand, it’s a relatively well known term at this point.
boards
Many products refer to similar feature sets simply as “boards”. we do this ourselves currently to refer to the boards themselves within the plugin. perhaps the plugin itself should just be named “boards”? on the other hand, in the forum world, “boards” often refer to “message boards”. would that be a poor choice in our case?
something else?
Perhaps you have another idea about what to call this. If so, let us know!
I really like where this is going, and I’m super excited! We use this feature extensively on our forum, for multiple purposes.
I think so, yes. We’ve had our forum for almost 10 years now, its official title contains “Discussion Forum”, and it is still regularly referred to as the discussion boards. This would cause a ton of confusion.
ehhhhh, I don’t know about that, to be honest. Definitely to more tech minded people, and perhaps people who perform their labor largely on a computer, but outside of that it’s not been my experience that it’s a term known much at all.
I don’t know if I have helpful suggestions on the name. We use it not only for planning projects but also as an approval & workflow pipeline for requests, so “projects” doesn’t quite fit, but maybe it does for most others.
Honestly after seeing the plane icon I thought of “boards” as “strips” because my brain is weird, it made me think of landing strips, and how the cards travel from strip to strip in order to reach their final destination.
Thanks for sharing that perspective. Makes me more compelled to pick something else.
Yeah, “projects” was another one that came to mind for me at some point. But I agree it feels a bit limiting. But maybe.
You said “workflow” up there, but we’ve recently given that name a different meaning.
Boards still really does feel like the best, plain language option to me at the moment. But I hear you about the confusion it could cause in the space we inhabit
I am trying the plugin. I found it very promising and I am super excited to be allowed to test it. I found some features that probably can add value to the experience with it, and I share my thoughts:
What about adding a batch of topics (not by tag but manually choosing them) to boards instead of one by one?
This is the first limitation that I found in my first drafts and experimentation into it. Perhaps it was not originally with this in mind but can be extended to more use cases this way.
Other ideas that come to mind, with no particular order:
Note that I am using Horizon and my experience could change a bit from Foundation.
Allow clicking on a board’s card to enter the board, not only from their title.
Display the solved icon in solved topics, the assigned icon in assigned topics, and the closed icon in already closed topics. It will free tags for different actions.
Make the full-screen toggle be really full-screen, or disable it. Now it is a little confusing (in Horizon) and it is not giving a proper full-screen experience.
Calendar integration for weekly view, allowing to arrange the cards between them, especially for created events. Proper integration with the Assign plugin as well.
Extensive workflow integration for automatically adding, updating, and moving topics between cards, and cards between boards.
In a non-intrusive way, indicate that the cards can be scrolled horizontally. Once users get used to the panels, it’s no longer necessary, but if this view is used by default in categories like support or features, newer users might get lost.
It occurs to me that a simple, subtle CSS gradient line that appears only once per session might be enough. I know that eventually the design team will figure out the most effective way to handle this.
Allow moving topics/cards freely between columns. Again, it is probably not the design principle, but it is very useful for teams with more informal work structures, which are based primarily on experimentation and adaptive change.
Regarding the plugin’s name, I’m glad you’re considering it, and I agree that “Kanban” is —and at the same time isn’t— widely used. At least when looking at different communities, outside of those that typically follow processes and procedures with the support of project managers or similar staff.
I’d just like to add a few words that I think could describe this great functionality (avoiding commercial terms and focusing on functionality): To-do, Task, Status, Activity [Boards].
Trello, and similar ones, are using Planner. But those aren’t Kanban solutions, but close — yet kanban is the most common and de facto actual name for that kind system. I’m not sure if you guys have real need to try re-invent a wheel again You started with a kanban and this new one is the same.
You started with a kanban and this new one is the same.