It made me feel better, as I struggle from time to time with design, to know that even companies with as much focused design talent as 37signals tweak stuff endlessly, and that clean designs don't spring fully-formed from their heads. Everyone iterates.
Agreed. I think iteration is one of the secrets to doing any kind of creative work well, especially design. Too many people get discouraged by their early attempts at a design, because they assume (incorrectly) that being good means getting things right the first time.
Really liked the video styling, showing the evolution of a design. Something as simple as a few icons, its rare on a project you get to put that much time into it. I'm a bit excited they are going to do more project boards like Trello or Jira Greenhopper
Thats a really pretty illustration of the concept that "failed" designs are the most important part of the journey to the one that works. They've certainly explored a vast number of disparte approaches, excited to see where it ends up.
As a designer the images dont seem to have a very clear evolution so its difficult to tell why things were changed. It sort of frusterates me to watch this video because, while I respect evolutionary editing and design -- this feels like a lot of versioning for no clear reason.
I'm sure thats not the case -- but its what it FEELS like.
It's a one minute video just sharing some of the discarded designs. There's a reason behind all of it, but showing the reason(s) wasn't the intent of this video.
When I am reading about BP Next or viewing this video, I get the feeling that this "move" has something to do with Wunderkit launch http://www.wunderkit.com/. Be it the timing, be it the coloured backgrounds on the video, etc. I don't know exactly why, but I get the feeling.
And I am saying this, despite being a huge fan of 37s, their products and their philosophy (as demonstrated in their books and SvN). I have read everything they have written and I am a paying customer.
I also feel, however, that BP Next would be one more great product from 37s.
I'm sure they respect all the competition, but I don't get why they would feel specially threatened by Wunderkit. I've tried it and it's feels so cluttered compared to 37signals products.
Seems more like this iteration has been going forever, and they're just ready to launch.
But strategically wise, I can see a threat from Wunderkit to Basecamp. Wunderkit is trying to bring a BP-style project management product (evolved) to a mass-market. It is not going for the geeks, designers, etc that BP has mostly as its clients. It is going for the mass and thus a recent article has mentioned them as "a Facebook for the workplace". After all, their first product (Wunderlist) has 1.5M users and reached 1M users in 275 days(!). Finally, a previous comment in HN frames 37s move in a nice way:
This is an exceptionally well-handled video. No matter what the end result there will be a contingent that says "Didn't 37 test this?!", and you can show quite a bit of thought went into the process.
Excited to see what Basecamp evolves into, but I doubt it can lure me from Trello. :)
