Do you hate project management software? Try DevShop (private beta)

If you are using project software and find it is too complex and difficult to use then you are in the majority of users and you are probably the perfect customer for DevShop.

DevShop is a web based project tool that is easy to use and is great for those more focused on getting the job done. I would say that DevShops only real competitor in this space is 37Signals‘ already launched web-based project management software BaseCamp.

Below I will provide a breakdown of my early experiences - features, screenshots, and areas that need work. All this is first glance information so take it with a grain of salt.

Some of the features in Devhop are:

• Calendar
  • Scheduling by Person, component/feature, and project
• Task Management
• Project Intelligence (aka Risk Management)
  • Schedule Confidence, Time Estimation Error, Distraction Rate
• Account Management (aka My Organisation) is simple and easy to use.
• Excellent help and information layout, I really felt like I could just hop in and use their product, if only MS Project was half this intuitive.
• Information graphing so that instead of ‘….just a Gantt chart’ you get a variety of discrete pieces of information needed to make a project decision.

What needs work?

• When I got into work I wanted to continue fooling around with DevShop and found that I had forgotten the team I was working on and when I looked for the usual link e.g. you have forgotten your password, there was nothing in sight. I had to email the developers. In fairness they have promised such a feature when DevShop goes public beta. They probably how many early adopters would be stupid enough to forget their password so quickly (me).
• When you click the little plus buttons ( ) that are next to every field they don’t change to a (-) sign as you would expect. This is a common patter to use the (-) sign when expanding a field in conjunction with the (+) sign
• Many of the images don’t have ‘alt’ tagging information, which isn’t good because ‘alt’ information can be really useful when a user is stuck at what to do next
• The Task Summary e.g. Falling Behind, In Progress, Ahead of Schedule don’t take advantage of AJAX to open and close so instead you are faced with 3 rather large boxes. I guess if they were full then it wouldn’t be a factor but things change all the time and it would be nice if there was a way to trim them up a bit. Why not trim them up using the same ‘expand’, ‘unexpand’ feature of Task Summary?
• When I click on View Project I don’t know what to expect. Should I expect the Project Report, thats what DevShop assumed, or should I expect Project Schedule? There is enough space on that line to probably put Project Report and next to it Project Schedule rather than the ambiguous View Project
• Account Management is simple to use but isn’t obvious (My organisation vs Account/Account Services?). Also temporary passwords are asigned via pop up and I couldn’t copy and paste it, I had to write it down. This was odd.

Bugs??

• Schedule by Component (-) click on this sign doesn’t collapse the menu items below as it should.
• Also when entering a new task first a task must be created then when you click on the task to rename it and then press enter the page reloads (as it should) but then defaults back to ‘new task’ instead of the new name. I did this three times in FF 1.5.0.6

Suggestions:

• Where is the messaging area? Software developers are prolific chatters.
• Where are software specifications files to be kept? It would be great if all project documents could be kept in one location - preferably with the project data.
• Guys why so many graphics - less Yahoo Email beta and more Gmail would be nice. I am a long time Yahoo email user and I can’t stand the clutter and bulky feel of Yahoo’s beta email interface. Gmail may not have the users of Yahoo email but it certainly has a highly touted interface design.

Just an observation but why is there a page load time at the very bottom and why is DevShop using the _ _ _ _ _ for some links as that is usually used in conjunction with the XHTML tag? That is the only place _ _ _ _ _ is used to emphasize a link and that does seem odd.

Finally I have to point out something amusing that some may not know. DevShop announced their private beta just a couple weeks ago and as of today they are now releasing their private beta 3 days late. Now that is amusing. I don’t think its anything to hold against their product but that doesn’t make it any less amusing.

DevShop is a great first crack at the web-based project management market and as an early beta they are definitely showing promise. They still have a ways to go but as they are a Private beta they have the time. Also its important to remember they are focusing on software project management which means as time goes by that exclusive focus should pay off with great features that probably isn’t available with more generalist packages e.g BaseCamp.

Keep up the good work DevShop, your product is really coming along.

Link to Flickr screenshots of DevShop