hcengineering / hcengineering/platform

Action Item & Issue usability

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TypeScript
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Description

Some usability issues I noticed around Action Items, Issues:

**(1) Completing an action item moves the task forward, rather than marking it Done.**

If you create an issue & assign it to a user with the status "Todo" this creates the Action Item. That can be planned in the calendar (status="In Progress") and then marked complete and the Issue will change to "Done" state. All good.

But if you don't plan the Action Item in the calendar, and just mark it complete on the Action Item, the Issue transitions to "In Progress". This creates a weird state where the Action Item is in a done state, but the Issue is In Progress.

**(2) The inbox notifications for action items don't link to the action item**

The behavior of (1) and the description of action items seems to suggest the "right" workflow is to schedule and mark work complete in the action item view, rather than on the task. But the Inbox notifications for action items don't link to the action item (even though it says "Action Item" as a clickable link, that goes to the Issue)

![Image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2b6460b2-b154-49d3-8ec0-f61f280bd46c)

**(3) The use of the same circle tick box for archive and mark done is confusing**

When you create move an Issue into Todo you get an Action Item notification containing two checkable circles (well actually 3 if you include the checked one next to action item) which all have different meanings.

![Image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bbe7fa8d-4529-4b7a-9947-8725ed99735f)

It _looks_ to me like clicking that top right box will _complete_ the action item. But it archives the notification.

(1) was posted in the Slack channel already.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

No files or tests are named. Reproduce the described Todo, calendar, Action Item, and Inbox workflows, then trace the relevant Action Item and notification entry points. Done means the three reported usability problems have distinct, consistent behavior: completion does not leave a mismatched issue state, notifications open the Action Item, and archive versus complete controls are visually clear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
backend, frontend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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