0 Working with Lighthouse
After using Trac extensively for a few months, it was refreshing step into the courts of Lighthouse, a light to the touch ticket management tool.
As a designer it’s weird beans working in Ticket management tools. While they prioritize how design is continuously integrated into software, it’s still strange always thinking in terms of a ticket. But Lighthouse (built by the guys at ActiveReload/ENTP).
No Cruft Please
When I worked with Trac, I was constantly bamboozled by loads and loads of useless bits. To most developers and maybe a handful of designers those things could have been useful. But really what else is there other than posting screen-shots and fixing layout bugs? Yeah, not a whole lot.
Lighthouse tackles both sides of fence. Developers get everything they need and nothing they don’t which is great for designers who weigh in on projects as well. Ticket systems for the most part are built for developers and it’s nice to see that someone cared about how the interface looks. It’s really frightening how much usability depends on how well the interface flows.
All in all I love Lighthouse, it does it’s job well with very very few barriers. I’d even suggest this system to a small team of designers.