Github is excellent - but managing feature requests is difficult on Github. This article describes how Productific can be used as an additional tool to manage feature requests for your Github-hosted projects.
Github provides an excellent service for hosting software projects. Its offering for source code management and document lifecycle are unmatched. Though, managing feature requests is difficult on Github. Issues can be filed for a project in Github. These issues can be handled like feature requests. However, opening an issue has a negative connotation to users unfamiliar with Github, something appears "wrong" with the project. In contrast, a feature request is suggestion for improvement - in a positive way. Highly engaged users tend to submit valuable feature requests. So they should not go through the hassle of submitting an "issue".
Github's web interface is very developer centric. Users can relate to a README.md section and are comfortable seeing pull requests. Though, this optimization for developer-to-developer communication makes Github awkward to use for consumer style products and their users.
What consumer-style users really want is submitting ideas or feature requests. They want to read how-to documents instead of README.md and they cannot relate to pull requests, revisions or forks. They also expect a visual design that relates to the product.
Productific offers all of the above:
Productific can handle feature requests for your Github projects - when you want interaction with non-tech users beyond what Github provides.