I’ve received several encouraging e-mails about Tracker, but they've all come with questions as well. After some thought, I decided to start sharing regular status updates to address the questions and keep any interested parties in the loop.
The format of my site doesn't really allow for quick little links, so I thought I'd start sharing some noteworthy links for sites and products that I've used, enjoyed, or pre-ordered. It's an easy way for me to share things without writing a detailed post about each one.
It's not uncommon to spend so much time on the big picture that we overlook the details. While I'm far from a typographical expert, my growing interest in typography has really helped draw my attention into more subtle details that add up to make a difference.
It's panel picking time, and Garrett Murray and I are hoping we can offer some insight into our design decisions for Simplelog and the issue tracker for SXSWi 2008.
We've taken a look at the concepts behind the issue life-cycle and workflow, and next we're going to see how the dashboard is playing out so far. For me, the dashboard is about quickly assessing the state of projects, and diving right in to managing them.
I've seen countless elaborate ways to link related or duplicate issues. While most of them get the job done, it's generally way more confusing than it needs to be. I considered a lot of different solutions, but in the end, there was one that stood out.
For my issue tracker, I've wanted a more natural process for updating issues. I decided that all activity would have to go through the comment form associated with each issue. This way any change in status, priority, category, or assignee could quickly and easily be associated with a comment.
I'll be on panel with some incredibly talented and knowledgeable Dallas folks discussing different aspects of Web 2.0 and rich internet applications this Tuesday, August 21st.
Last time, I went into my vision of a simpler bug and issue tracking life-cycle. This time, I want to focus on one of the manifestations of a simpler process—the status bar.
I'm a very big fan of spending equal time between drawing and sketching interfaces and pushing pixels in Photoshop or Omnigraffle. I've checked out quite a few sketchbooks and ideas, but the Dot Grid Book by Behance is my favorite.
It's been quiet around here, but things are about to pick back up. I've been spending all of my free time designing and developing an issue tracker that I'll be releasing as open source early next year. Until then, I'll be exposing and sharing the design and development process.