Back in November of last year I started a web-based project to help me organize tasks and issues for client projects and some of my own projects. I was using Trello at the time but I felt it wasn't enough for what I wanted to do, so I created what would eventually be called Issue Zero.

Within weeks of starting the project, I had the first version deployed on AWS. I gradually started moving my own projects and issues over and created new issues as I got work from clients. This allowed me to experience the app as a user and understand its weaknesses. With each round of changes, I tried to address the issues that were most critical. I tried simplifying things. Instead of having a ton of views, I tried consolidating views by getting more on a single page without making the UI feel cluttered. To accomplish this, I borrowed the concept of boards, lists, and cards from Trello. I added the ability to drag and drop issue cards to reschedule them. Clicking on them revealed a modal offering greater detail and the ability to make changes to that issue, such as editing the description or assigning the issue to another user.

I also added the ability to log hours and generate reports. This was in the first version as it was critical for getting paid. Currently, all issues assigned to the user are displayed under a page called My Schedule. You can start or stop work on each issue by clicking a button. You will be prompted to type a short description of what you are working on before starting the clock. Another page features reports which are generated on demand. You can choose a specific project or all projects, the year, and whether you want weekly reports or monthly reports. All reports for that year are shown on one page as links which you can click to view the report.

Over the last 6 months I've made steady progress on the project, but each week I think of new things to improve and add. Right now I think most of the features I want are in place, but there's still plenty to do to enhance usability. I made a list of 15 or so issues for things that annoy me about the project and so far I've fixed at least half of them. Once I finish those I might work on setting up a demo environment so people can actually see what I'm talking about.