A couple days ago we launched Phase I of a Basecamp 3 refresh/redesign. One of the more significant changes was a redesigned nav bar at the top that consolidated the Pings, Hey, and Campfire menus into a single, unified Hey! inbox menu.
Sometimes when you push for a big change, you overstep. We overstepped, plain and simple. Our customers let us know loud and clear that Pings are a separate category of notification that continues to deserve its own special place in the nav bar. They’re right — when someone’s trying to get ahold of you directly, it’s important to elevate that above notifications that inform a whole group.
We’re sorry we let some of you down.
So today we’re bringing back the Pings menu as its own menu (Campfires are still consolidated into the new Hey menu). Over time we’ll continue to explore ways to improve notifications, but as of now, Pings live alone! We also may revisit Pings vs. Direct/Private Messages language, but that’s for another day. For now, Pings it is!
A nice silver lining is that we were able to improve the new Pings menu to include previews of the last line someone sent you. So hopefully this makes up a little for our snafu 😀.
Here’s a screenshot of the new Pings menu in action:
And the new Hey! menu is the same as before, just without Pings:
Thanks again to everyone who shared their thoughts, and for being patient and understanding while we re-evaluated our decision. Product development is a constant struggle between too much, just right, and not enough. Sometimes you get end up on the wrong side of right. While we can’t always guarantee everyone will like our decisions — it’s impossible to please millions all the time — we vow to continue to do our best to benefit our customer base as a whole. ❤️
