I am a new asana user. Its a great product but I have to say there are some usability aspects that are not friendly to new users. They are great for power users, but new users are not catered to.
Here is the latest one. When a new users is looking around and trying to figure out how to perform certain tasks with asana, it is not productive to have certain buttons hiding until you move your mouse in a particular location. Here is the example:
A pencil and a “plus” icon are nowhere to be found on the task. As such it took me a long time to figure out how to move a task to another project. However, if you would leave these icons visible at all time, in the first minute of using the product I would have clicked (or moused over) these icons and I would have seen how to do what I needed.
I am very curious about the decision to make certain features like this pencil and this plus not visible. I can only imagine it is in an attempt to keep the UI as clean and uncluttered as possible. However, the usability must take priority over design in a product like this.
My recommendation therefore is: have all icons display at all times. Otherwise important features become more like Easter eggs. Remember, while seasoned users will have no problem with disappearing icons, new users get penalized. I hope your product and revenue people will agree that new users must have the best experience to grow the product.
I believe your UI team would agree with me, but your design team may not.
Thanks