When you’re working on a project, there are a lot of options for tracking the progress of a project but one of the main problems is finding something to manage the smaller things. There was a day when we could all turn to our friend, pen and paper, but since we’re in the technological age, why not use something more reliable and online?
Speckle is a minimalistic app that provides a unique way of easily managing projects without the fuss of full-blown task management apps. See what I’m raving about inside the article.
Overview
Speckle is a web application that exists solely to help manage projects, with an emphasis on the smaller tasks. The app is small and includes only the required functionality, mainly using the concept of checkboxes to easily tick off certain items on a list, based on their current “stage”. Because of this, it is useful for almost all types of projects as these parameters can be defined on a per-project basis, meaning that you’re not limited to the standard set of progress milestones for all projects.
Overview
Interface
It is no lie that Speckle is simple. This is reflected within the app and despite it’s quite bland colour scheme, this is outshined by the sheer level of usefulness the app provides. Everything is laid out quite well and as such, almost everything is easily within reach without the constant navigation for the most simplest of functions that can often be seen in most web apps nowadays.
Interface
Getting Started
It only takes a few seconds to create a new Speckle account to manage your projects and even this isn’t required to use the app. Simply enter your name, email and chosen password into the quirky and simple registration form and you’ll immediately be able to enjoy the benefits of the app. As I said, registration isn’t compulsory to try out the features of the app and for those who only want to test its capabilities, they offer the ability to create a dummy account. Anyway, once you’ve registered, you’ll be taken to the project overview.
Registration
Creating Projects
Project creation doesn’t take that long and is an incredibly easy process. Once you’ve chosen a name for the project, you can enter several email addresses of other collaborators who you’d like to work on the project with you. You are then given the option of adding a description and then defining the different stages of the projects. This is where Speckle stands out as it allows you to explicitly state each one of the project stages to make the actual recording of tasks unique to that project.
Creating Projects
For example, if you were designing a website, you could define stages that consist of things like “mock-up”, “final revision” and “sent to client”—meaning that it is incredibly useful for individual tasks that are not typical of most projects. Once projects are created, it is possible to then add lists to them based on the varying needs of each project.
Another great feature is that on the project overview, it’s easy to track the progress of a project because the percentage of completion is automatically calculated and displayed. This can be especially useful when you’d like to see a quick overview of the project’s progress.
Project Overview
Creating Lists
The lists features is possibly the most integral part of Speckle and it comprises the majority of the actual management. Lists basically consist of several items that can be marked based on their current progress state as defined by the stage markers chosen when creating the project.
Lists
As such, this opens up a whole range of possible uses for the app and because it allows for multiple lists per project, it’s a bonus being able to separate each of the different sets of items. Items could be anything though it is most probably typically used for tasks. Because of the sheer simpleness of the app, it’s even possible to use the app to manage everyday things like Christmas gift lists, etc., making the lists extremely handy.
Multiple Lists
Collaboration
Speckle is also particularly useful when collaborating with other members of your organisation. Once you invite a user to a project, they are then sent an email from Speckle detailing the invitation and they are then invited to create an account and after doing so, can then choose to decline or accept the project collaboration request. Whilst the features of this are not heavy, it’s still a quick and simple way to add team members to projects that can be managed jointly.
Inviting People to Project
Final Thoughts
There are loads of web-based task management applications around, this is no lie. However, a lot of these focus mainly on doing everything for you and assuming that your projects will take one particular shape. This is where Speckle is different, and they allow you to define each stage of the project so that it is suited to each project in turn. Whether you’re a designer, developer, or even a writer, Speckle’s ability to handle self-defined stages in a project can come to a really good use. Another one of the major problems with these small simple task management applications is that they focus on being small and this is where Speckle is different.
Whilst Speckle does lack some features that may make it stand out a bit more, I think that the app does work simply because they’re not offering to do anything more than provide an easy online replacement to good old-fashioned pen and paper. Overall, I believe that Speckle is a great asset to any team or individual that just needs somewhere to record everything that needs to be done.