---
title: Operating Under The Confluence
teaser:
tags: design
author: Eric Mill
published_on: 2007-03-02
---

At thoughtbot, we use 37signals' [Basecamp] for project management, and
[Campfire] for interoffice chat.  But sometimes, circumstances beyond our
control compel us to participate in Atlassian's [JIRA] software.  JIRA's todos
are called issues, and require certain permissions to mark issues as complete,
resolved, confirmed, etc.  I don't have permissions to do any of these on many
of the issues I'm assigned, and so my only option is called Cancel, which,
interestingly, marks the issue as Fixed.  I think the experience of working with
JIRA, and all of [Atlassian's enterprise software][atlassian], can be summed up
by this screenshot:

[Basecamp]: https://basecamp.com/
[Campfire]: https://www.campfirenow.com
[JIRA]: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/
[atlassian]: https://www.atlassian.com/

![''](http://images.thoughtbot.com/ui/2007-3-2-jira-s.png)

**Update:** Apparently this instance of UI insanity was not truly JIRA's fault,
but the client's for specifying Cancel as an option in their workflow.  Fair
enough!  For something this bizarre, it takes two.