Top Project Management Systems for Designers

Published in

Tools for Information Designers

7 min readMar 4, 2022

What is Project Management, and Why is it Important?

Project management uses an organizational plan to hit project deadlines, budgets, and requirements in a timely manner to meet a deliverable and is led by a project manager. Likewise, a project management system assists organizations by giving teams access to know where they are in a project, the tasks included, whether budgets are being met, and if people are meeting project and task deadlines. The reason project management systems are used, even if a company has a project manager, is because a project management system can help assist the project manager by providing direct, up to date feedback for employees so everyone can view a team’s progress on a project so that each team member is held accountable.

Information Designer’s Core Values

The core values of an information designer may differ from other fields of work. The features and characteristics chart is based on the needs of information designers, which is something to be kept in mind during this software review. Information designers can easily pick apart design flaws and technical writing flaws, distracting the designer from using a program. One main characteristic considered in this software review was the simplicity of the design choices. To limit distractions, the program needs to consider its complexity level, organizational systems, visual design elements, and how compatible the software is between Android, Apple, mobile and web-based. Other considerations such as monthly costs and reliability are also reviewed to provide a comprehensive overview of each software chosen.

Top Project Management Software’s and a Breakdown of Each

Software: Asana

Asana is great for team collaboration. You can create projects, assign tasks to specific people, see how far along everyone is in a project, set deadlines, have an inbox with updates and notifications, and there are many templates for charts and diagrams. It is nice because you can assign tasks for yourself and your teammates, have them show on different boards, view various boards, see how the team is doing on projects in ‘reporting’ to view progress and see the team and company goals.

https://asana.com/?noredirect

Quick Overview:

Users: Zoom, Figma, Blackboard, Skillshare

Price: $0 Basic plan — $24.99 for business plan

Web/App — Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Easy to learn and use
Simple and clean design
Variety of templates

Software: Work Front

Adobe Work Front allows teams to manage projects, assign tasks to specific people, set timelines, and link final projects to Adobe Campaign and analytics. It connects with your creative cloud and allows you to create a project from beginning to end with Adobe products. Typically, you need to use software outside Adobe for design work, but this keeps it simple.

https://www.workfront.com/

Quick Overview:

Users: Under Armour, Home Depot, Nordstrom

Price: No free plans. Pro, business, enterprise (no costs listed)

Web/App — Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Easy integration with Adobe products
Can link with external programs such as Slack, Outlook, Teams, and Gmail
View files, edit, and share
Easy collaboration

Software: Notion

Notion is an entirely customizable program and gives users the ability to organize their pages according to their wants. With many templates and online pages, it is easy to get started. The one issue with Notion is setting up a page can be very time-consuming, especially if you want customizable features, as you will need to find the code to add an integration. Overall, Notion is simple in design, completely customizable, and easy to share with smaller teams to assign tasks and view project progress.

https://www.notion.so/product

Quick Overview:

Users: Lululemon, Loom, Samsung

Price: $0 Personal plan — $8 for a Team

Web/App — Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Customizable (can add own code)
Automate workflow
Enterprise — Security features: secure access, advanced permissions, and success manager help create Notion pages

Software: Basecamp

Basecamp offers an all-in-one work hub that supports message boards, group chats, file sharing, scheduling, check-ins, and to-do lists. The software has thumbnails of each project and team, making for easy access to different sections in the project management system. You can toggle through the pages at the top by clicking the header, which will direct you to that page. Within a project, you can have group chats, to-do lists, scheduling, etc., so you only have information about the project within that board. You can access all the information in your panels to see all your tasks, schedules, drafts, etc. You know what is upcoming across all projects to stay on top of your work.

https://basecamp.com/

Quick Overview:

Users: Media Junction, WOW Marketing, UBC

Price: $99/month for a business plan, $0 for a personal plan

Web/App: Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Software: Monday.com

Monday.com is a surprisingly awesome project that allows you to create projects tasks and change views. Compared to Notion, the opinions are more advanced to get more accurate depictions of where you are at in projects to stay on track. You must start with a board when creating a project, but from there, you can go into tasks, make comments like a social media post, and add integrations to automate processes. Monday.com connects with Slack, Gmail, Google calendar, and more.

https://monday.com/

Quick Overview:

Users: Canva, Coca-Cola, Hulu, NHL

Price: $0 individual — $22 Pro monthly

Web/App — Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Can integrate with other Monday.com products (CRM, projects, marketer)
All project tasks in one place
Automate processes and customize them with integrations

Software: Teamwork

Teamwork.com and Monday.com are very similar. Teamwork was founded in 2007 compared to Monday in 2012, which makes me believe that Monday got all their ideas from Teamwork. Besides the point, with Teamwork, there are about 25,000 actions compared to Monday with 250. You can add whether projects are internal or external and add unique features such as risks for a project, notebooks, billing, and milestones. You can also import data from other apps into Teamwork to automate processes.

https://www.teamwork.com/

Quick Overview:

Users: Not listed

Price: $0 individual — $18 Grow

Web/App — Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android

Can integrate with other apps
Add unique features: risks, notebooks, billing, and milestones
On the site, you can compare Teamwork to other programs

Conclusion

Overall, these programs have very similar features, and it depends on your team’s budget, how much customization you want, and if you want it to be an all-in-one spot for all work communication or if you plan on using other programs such as email on top of the project management system.

References

Asana. (2022). Asana website. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from

https://asana.com/?noredirect

Basecamp. (2022). Basecamp website. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from

https://basecamp.com/

Goodman, J. (2019). Teamwork in Office. [Photograph]. Retrieved from

https://unsplash.com/photos/vbxyFxlgpjM

[Image of Adobe Workfront logo]. (n.d). Retrieved February 13, 2022, from https://www.getapp.com/project-management-planning-software/a/workfront/pricing/

[Image of Adobe Workfront user interface]. (n.d). Retrieved February 13, 2022, from

https://www.getapp.com/project-management-planning-software/a/workfront/

[Image of Asana logo]. (n.d). Retrieved February 13, 2022, from

https://asana.com/brand