Lightspeed and new interfaces in general
Hmm. Completely changing the app interface because...(choose one):
- It works just fine and people are adopting and using the application
- People are experienced with using it and familiar with how to find everything
- Work efficiency has been achieved because of this familiarity and adoption
- We have a huge backlog of improvements so it's easier to just completely re-do the interface
Features of Lightspeed:
- "reminagined interface" - what metric was arbitrarily used to declare a "better experience"? You've made our entire experience worse. Did you poll a large group of users to determine what needed to be adjusted on the desktop, or let a random child or professional cleaner "imagine" a "nice" desktop?
- "modern and easy-to-work views with faster processing" - so having to completely re-learn how to do things I've been doing in Wrike equates to being "modern"? What defines "faster processing" - the app seems to run at exactly the same speed as before for me. I do not believe you somehow magically increased the speed of database calls or web page execution...
- "seamless navigation" - some things now require more clicks, and some less. And what is "seamless" now please explain.
- "decluttered workspace" - yes, I can put all my icons into a folder on my desktop. But in order to do work I still must open the folder. So all you did is move things around and force users to re-learn the interface. Please don't clean my room and organize my house anymore. I know where everything is because I PUT IT THERE for a reason that works for me.
I could go on and on but I hope you get the point. There is a MAJOR difference between improving a product and adding new features than re-shuffling everything on the dashboard just because that's easier to do than actually bringing in new features/functionality.
If you think this review is harsh, then you understand that you need better project planners or managers who actually understand what is important to change and what not to touch. If it's not broken, you do NOT fix it. Your interface was by no means broken, but you effectively confused all your users and forced them to re-learn where everything is and how they were doing what they were doing before.
jr
Thanks Juan.
My expectations are very simple and as you can tell I am extremely disappointed. Wrike is a work-organizational tool so it should help me see and visualize my work. Removing all the work from instant view is not something any large organization or power-user of Wrike would ever expect. How would you feel if Apple or Samsung removed ALL the icons (work) from your phone and make you click a drop-down list to see a list of them instead of clickable icons that gave you direct access????
One major issue I have is this "simplification" of the desktop. i actually LIKE the current desktop because like the WINDOWS or any other OS desktop, I can put icons there and organize it as I need it to be. The desktop should be fully customizable and never restricted in any way, so your USERS can actually make it work for them. When the app opens, it goes to this desktop. I don't have to navigate anywhere or open anything to get to my actual desktop where I have a complete view and access to all the things I access. Before... EVERYTHING I needed to see and work on was right there. Lightspeed... ALL GONE and replaced by the completely useless inbox (I already have OUTLOOK for an inbox that Wrike sends things to, thank you). Everything that Wrike does is now crammed into a sidebar where I have to navigate, click, select from drop-down lists.. HOW IS THIS AN IMPROVEMENT? Hiding everything you are working on is NOT improving efficiency unless the metric for efficiency is how "clean" your desktop is.
Before:
Wow, I can see recommended tasks... recent things I've touched... ALL the spaces I need to jump into... All the critical things for Wrike in the right column. Perfect! In fact, the only thing that needs to be removed are the redundant "inbox" notices that I already have in OUTLOOK:
After - WHERE IS EVERYTHING? I should see instantly what my work is... but now it's all completely hidden behind multiple clicks and navigation. And the completely useless inbox is now the centerpiece???? I'm completely shocked at who would think this is in any way a step in the right direction. WHERE ARE THE WORK SPACES??? THOSE ARE THE CORE OF ORGANIZING WORK AND THE CENTER OF WRIKE'S PURPOSE!!!!!!
Thank you for the additional feedback John Rakoczy, I'll share it with the responsible team immediately.
I understand now that you're missing the Home page. Our team is planning to add all the missing elements from it to other instances in Wrike, we'll keep you posted.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
How to disable the Lightspeed interface? Please help!
I have to agree with John on most of his comments, and the apple reference was right on. I actually really loved the previous experience. Now I have to click multiple times to find anything, and my users are struggling to do the same. All the additional clicks really slow me down and would be opposite of "lightspeed."
Christi Adams I Agree with you, it's the opposite of lightspeed.
Hello Wrike - I wanted to echo some of John's comments as well, but especially the comment he made about requiring multiple clicks for things that were previously found with one click. For example: we used to have a clipboard icon that would take us directly to the parent folder containing the project input from our forms. This is no longer the case and depending on the structure of the space, the info button isn't always visible/available from all tasks.
Additionally, there are more clicks to edit our custom fields that we need for reporting in Wrike Analyze.
I'll add more as it comes up with the team, however these are two places we are drastically slowed down.
This example is genius! Because this is the exact mechanism used by custom interfaces for Android, that aim to reduce a person's usage of their phone. So, these design choices are typically made to stop people from using the platform, not to enhance the expierence.
(Also, I did not like the old homepage and do prefer the "starting" experience of lightspeed. Still, this issue is very much everywhere in lightspeed, not just the homepage.)
Hi Wrike team,
I also share some of John's frustrations with the new interface, especially the comment about needing additional clicks to find something. Specifically, I am finding that the new placement for the "Search" button is slowing down my workflow significantly. Other members on my team have also expressed frustration with this.
Would you please consider adding the "Search" button back to the top navigation bar?
Hi folks, thank you for your continued feedback here, we really appreciate it! Rest assured we're passing it on to the respective Product teams. We'll keep you posted on any changes and updates 🙌
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
I just turned on lightspeed to review and quickly turned it off. I understand that change is difficult, but there should be some benefit to it other than surfacing actions that I rarely do and burying actions that I do multiple times a day.
I'm not sure what decision process led your company to completely disrupt a customizable user experience. I am a program manager who has to track scores of projects out of hundreds and I had colorful icons to get me to the proper place quickly, whether it was a space, a report, a project or a starred task. I rarely had to venture into the project bar with its nested menus and monochromatic icons. Please put your effort into customer requests like printing reports into pdfs so that they can be cut into management presentations, or showing the last comment in the table view, both of which would be incredibly useful, and both of which have been back-burnered for years. I'm sure you have many examples of customer requests that your user base really needs. And please, please stop forcing us to rethink how to organize our project flow around your tool every few years.
Hello Larry Bell, thank you for your honest feedback, we value your concerns regarding the visibility of tools and actions. I understand that these changes require effort and time, however the goal of the new experience is to create a streamlined navigation and provide users with new and more powerful tools.
I've passed your comments on to our Product Team and if you require any assistance integrating the Lightspeed experience into your workflow, we're eager to assist. Also, I can connect you with your Customer Success Manager who will be more than happy to help. Please, do let me know if you are interested in this option 👍
Looking forward to your reply!
Larry Bell You comments are COMPLETELY spot-on.
It should be clear that building a successful world-class application requires a focus on quality and innovation, as well as a deep understanding of the user’s needs and expectations. This failed re-design serves as a reminder of the importance of putting the USER FIRST and striving for excellence in every aspect of the design, workflow and UI/UE. Ultimately, the success of an application depends on its ability to provide a consistent, enjoyable, intuitive and productive software experience that meets the needs of its intended audience. Lightspeed is an "epic fail" in this regard and certainly worthy of many memes that come to mind...
The lesson for Wrike’s executive management is that poor quality control, lack of innovation, inability to perceive customer needs, and failure to adequately test an application with a broad base of customers first (does anyone in Wrike know what a “beta” is and why these tests are so valuable???) can lead to failure of a product and brand. It is important to prioritize ALL of those things in order to meet the needs and expectations of users. After every major interface upgrade, there should be ZERO loss of customers and certainly no complaints about anything but the aesthetics… otherwise this indicates the revision was not a success.
After a few weeks of acclimating to this disorganized, messy new interface, I'm again convinced it was a gigantic step in the opposite direction of productivity. Before... everything you wanted to know about anything was EASILY visible nearly anywhere. For example, just with one click to open a task I could see who was following it. Now? I open a task (which also takes up 1/3 of the screen instead of the WHOLE screen as it used to)... and cannot see if there are followers... need to spend more time digging and confirming just for that????
How did you read my mind?!!
I'll highlight things again because... you are 100% correct. :)
I used to enjoy going into Wrike.
Now I avoid using it as much as possible, and even dread it due to the backward design structure of "LIGHTSPEED". I also am reminded that the combination of creativity with no intelligence behind it might create something entertaining but utterly useless to get any work done.
The difference in function and product utility from before to now is.... staggering. If only it were in the right direction... :( So very disappointed in this utter failure in concept and design. LIGHTSPEED is the YUGO of Wrike. Anyone involved with this branch of the product has failed miserably.
I agree with almost all of the comments above.
Lightspeed has definitely slowed down my ability to navigate to tasks and projects that I am working on/need to get status updates for. I have been using Wrike for over 5 years, and I can honestly say, that the last major UI change that was made (not Lightspeed) was such a huge improvement over what it was previously and it did actually increase our efficiency and user adoption.
The previous homepage allowed me to have quick access to all of the projects that I needed visibility to as well as quick access to all of my spaces and pinned items. Now the team has to hunt and search for their items, which allows for items to be "forgotten". Not only could I pin items to the homepage as reminders to check on whenever I logged in, but these icons could also be rearranged in order of importance.
One thing I really like about the new interface is the ability to perform mass updates from the table view. Unfortunately, other than that, there isn't anything about the new version that makes finding and completing my work any easier, and in most cases, this new UI makes it more difficult to get my tasks done.
I used to use Wrike for all of my personal items that I had to complete outside of our projects, but I've started tracking these items in other programs, which I hate to do because now I have to go to 2 different places to see my assigned work.
Hello Lisa, could you please ask the person responsible for the homepage (or the lack thereof) to address the points discussed in this thread? I would like to understand more deeply why they chose this particular direction.
Thanks
Hi everyone. We appreciate all feedback here, good and bad, so thank you for sharing it.
From my understanding, the main points flagged in this thread are the homepage sunset, a different location of the search, and Item view. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In relation to the homepage sunset, we found that a small number of accounts have been using it. Our goal for the Wrike Lightspeed release has been to make the experience more intuitive, as well as clean up the UI to help you concentrate on the important work. That's why a decision has been made to add the elements of the homepage to other instances and sunset the page.
I apologize for any confusion; please rest assured your feedback will not only be passed to our respective Product teams, but also to your Account teams within Wrike. We'll also continue bringing more updates and will alert you to them here in the Community.
I'd also highly recommend following our Betas and More forum - we post call-outs for feedback and interviews there for many of the releases.
Thank you again for sharing your feedback with us.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Thank you for the response and I appreciate it. Frankly I'm absolutely stunned that a "small number of accounts" used the home page. It's where you started when you opened the app, so that's impossible not to use it! It presented all the spaces - which are the top-most categories of one's work - right there for you to see. SPACES are the core of Wrike and the unit of organization of work in the app... and that was used by a small number of accounts?
I'm wondering how all these other companies organize their work as clearly the minority of us are in a different class altogether when it comes to organizing and staying on top of work. I need an application that shows me the work I'm trying to organize at a HIGH level, not hide it from view... when I want all the details, I drill down to them as needed. Details should NOT be the first thing I see. Perhaps the team needs to create the old interface for power-users and managers who need things organized from that POV and not an individual worker's perspective - and let the users SELECT which interface is appropriate for them.
I understand your points John Rakoczy, please rest assured I'm passing all your feedback on this topic to our team.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
I've been browsing the feedback in lightspeed threads and it appears that it is mostly negative. I wanted to provide some feedback from a a set of users on my PMO team regarding the new interface. I put the question out to a group of users and got these responses. Note, I hid names and cut a small amount of banter, but no cuts were made to comments related to lightspeed. I received no positive comments:
[Tuesday 12:24 PM] Bell, Larry
PMO Team I would like to provide honest feedback to Wrike regarding the rollout of their Lightspeed interface. Please reply to this thread with your impression of the new interface whether good, bad, or indifferent. One-word responses are welcome. Thanks.
[Tuesday 12:30 PM] CF
Hi Larry - I really miss the previous versions home screen specifically the function that let you see your recently viewed projects.
[Tuesday 12:32 PM] BC
Bad. Agree w/ C_. The "Home" screen was my favorite feature of Wrike and find it so much harder to navigate since they got rid of it.
(2 liked)
[Tuesday 12:35 PM] RR
Fail
[Tuesday 12:51 PM] MG
Bad & confusing.
[Yesterday 9:26 AM] SL
Agree with the above comments
[Yesterday 12:49 PM] EH
The theme seems to be that the new interface buries many of the handy functions that we were used to having readily visible/accessible while not providing any new usability benefits in exchange, so the main effects are confusion and decreased productivity.
[Yesterday 12:51 PM] JW
Agree with E_. There used be shortcuts that allowed me to navigate quickly to my items that are no longer visible and/or easily accessible.
[Yesterday 2:44 PM] FK
I'm not a fan either!
And here are comments from separate threads (unsolicited feedback):
[Tuesday 10:59 AM] TN
Did Wrike remove the feature allowing email updates to tasks? I don't see the email address under the permalink section anymore. Why lord why??? This was the BEST wrike feature ever!
[Tuesday 1:07 PM] TP
Re: Wrike - Client Services is using the MSFT Project/Planning web application . Are you familiar with their use, are we considering transitioning over?
Larry Bell Thanks for taking the time to do that. You polled the users of the app... It is obvious to me the design team for Lightspeed did not, and they assumed that whatever they do is always the best thing for the app ;) When everyone drinks the kool-aid, and critical thinking has not been taught in schools for decades, this is what you get.
I apologize for my critical reviews of Lightspeed, but I started actually depending on it to organize my work - and put all my eggs into one basket, as it was a solid basket before the interface was poked full of holes with all the unnecessary re-design. I can't help but feel that they were creating work to justify some jobs over there lol. Changing the interface versus trying to bring some difficult challenges on the backlog into fruition was a bad decision IMO.
Wrike needs to set itself apart from everyone else instead of focusing on trying to look like everyone else. IDC what apps look like or how fast they tell us they are - we buy software because the functionality is solid and the interface is ACTUALLY intuitive.
Thank you for sharing these conversations with us Larry Bell, I'll send your team's feedback to our Product team as well.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Still a disaster. And I'm actually mad when I read advertising like this:
Seriously, in America companies are often sued for false advertising. Some of those statements above are completely outrageous, outright lies! I suppose in the era of Twitter and social media, it has become effortless to ignore facts and promote non-facts as truth.
I repeat that the most important goal for Wrike should be to create the old interface for power-users and managers who need things organized from that POV and not an individual worker's perspective - and let the users SELECT which interface is appropriate for them.
Lightspeed is clearly designed for the worker-bee and someone who needs gigantic blinders on. Bring back the original useful interface for managers and those who are serious about organizing work from a higher perspective. Allow users to choose what interface works best for them.
Organizations who have 50-100 spaces do NOT find Lightspeed useful at all.
Hello John Rakoczy, I'm sorry to hear that the changes brought about by the new experience are not meeting your expectations. Please, rest assured that we are passing all your feedback on to our dedicated team, which is aware of your concerns.
Allow me to mention that some improvements in Wrike Lightspeed that could be helpful for project managers could be Chart view or New Dashboards.
We will keep you informed in case any changes are implemented. In the meantime, please feel free to share any other questions you might have with us.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.