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Update menu item names for Applications -> Favorites
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Authored by chad on Sep 4 2017, 4:27 PM.
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Details

Summary

Adds a MenuName method to applications that ProfileMenuItem uses instead of the application name if set. This improves the home/menu/new user experience at little cost. Also renamed the label from Applications to Favorites, since this menu gets altered to provide more than just applications. This also allows instances to set back to Maniphest if they so choose. Overall I think this direction resolves 95% of my concerns, with maybe a small potential downside which I don't really anticipate. We already name Dashboard panels by their object, and that hasn't really caused confusion. I think these links are similar. I click 'Tasks' and get presented a list of my tasks from Maniphest.

Test Plan

Review each of the name changes as a default new install and a modified install.

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I strongly dislike this change and think it solves a non-problem that only a few users experience and which we've already given them tools to deal with.

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Sep 5 2017, 1:12 PM

I strongly dislike this change and think it solves a non-problem that only a few users experience and which we've already given them tools to deal with.

This is why I'm making a change, users should not have to do this. Also the tools are not complete, any admin that does not update the language is subjects all new users to potentially the same confusion. These details matter to me. I'm not making this change for people who already use Phabricator, but for those who will use it down the road.

I just personally want to take a more long-term approach to design and product more than I have in the past. The details are the design is a common quote. I feel this way. For the past 5 years I feel I've set aside details at the expense of velocity or lack of engineering skill / time. I think it's important if I want the product to actually move forward design wise vs. the competition to sweat the details. I'm understanding that Eng does not equally weigh these kinds of thing and I think that's fine overall. I could easily say I don't weigh performance or scalability the same way Eng does, but we work together with an understanding of what's important to the other.

My objection is that this is a hack which just buries the complexity instead of getting rid of it. If you think this is genuinely an important change which impacts the long-term health of Phabricator, I think you should rename Maniphest to Tasks instead. I don't personally believe that's the right call in the long term, but this particular change is neither here-nor-there: we have the same amount of complexity in terminology but less consistency in the UI.

I definitely understand that thinking and if we were building a new product today, do that. At least, I think we generally do that? Renaming applications comes with legacy baggage, and I'm not convinced the cost of the baggage plus the engineering cost outweigh a basic solution that could easily be rolled back. When you have very limited resources, how do you budget changes that are "correct, but highly expensive" vs "incorrect, but very cheap". Outside of an engineering organization, do you make that same decision? I gave serious consideration to renaming them this weekend, and that path seemed in the 1-2 month range for me, even if you agreed to it. I can't in good conscience allocate that much time to a single point of polish.

I don't believe this change is entirely inconsistent. Tasks are tasks, and thats where we take you, to your tasks. I don't personally agree with 'consistency' as an all important measuring stick for design. Especially over usability. Design should work as the user expects, without thought. Usually that is achieved through consistency, common patterns, but not a requirement. Users just want to see their tasks. I don't want to make them work for it.

This change has been on my mind all summer while working in Diffusion, to which I continually struggled to find easily in the side navigation. I know that probably seems silly or maybe even unbelievable, but I probably stumbled with it 1-2 times a day.

This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.