Bringing back the original sidebar

A couple of weeks ago, we started testing a change to the the sidebar navigation in Asana. We gathered a lot of feedback, some good, but most asking us to bring back the old sidebar. So your projects are now grouped by Team in the sidebar again, instead of in a separate list.

We know it isn’t easy when navigation changes, and we’re really grateful for your patience and understanding. Our ultimate goal is to provide the best possible way to access your work in Asana.

We learned a lot in this process that we’d like to share with you.

Why we tried this

In short: We were trying to simplify the navigation. As we added features to Asana, we had gotten feedback that the sidebar was confusing and cluttered, especially as Teams grow and more projects are created. One of the most frequent causes of confusion was not understanding the differences between Teams and projects. So we ran a test…

The test was based on a hypothesis that separating projects and Teams into distinct sections would help people understand the differences between the two. To help declutter, we also tried to automate which projects show up first and strip out less frequently visited projects.

What we learned

So many things! First and foremost, we learned from you that we should roll back the test. 

Hierarchy is helpful. We learned that people value the ability to navigate to projects based on what Team they are in. Organizing projects by Team in the sidebar provided a necessary level of hierarchy that was critical to your workflow.

Curation is key. We also learned that it’s important for people to be able to curate content in the sidebar. Reordering projects and Teams helps you customize your workflow based on your top priorities.

Algorithms aren’t always the answer. While some users have too many projects and Teams to quickly browse them all, many have a manageable amount. Users appreciate being able to scan the full list to make sure everything is accounted for. Only showing the most frequently visited projects and Teams doesn’t work for many of you.

What’s next?

We still believe there’s room for improvement with the original sidebar and how you access your projects and Teams, so we’re not giving up :smile:. Over the next few months you can expect to see smaller, more gradual changes to the sidebar. Your feedback was incredibly valuable; please keep it coming.