In this edition of Designing Details, I want to share with you a technique we use to go the extra mile on interface design. We believe little touches like these really improve the overall experience when using our products. The best way to show you is with a video:

Osmo Wiio is a Finnish researcher of human communication. He has studied, among other things, readability of texts, organizations and communication within them, and the general theory of communication. His laws of communication are the human communications equivalent of Murphy’s Laws.

• If communication can fail, it will.
• If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.
• There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.
• The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.

And I particularly like his observation that anytime there are two people conversing, there are actually six people in the conversation:

1. Who you think you are
2. Who you think the other person is
3. Who you think the other person thinks you are
4. Who the other person thinks he/she is
5. Who the other person thinks you are
6. Who the other person thinks you think he/she is

If you find this interesting, you can read more about Osmo and his theories on communication.

So it appears CNN is selling t-shirts with CNN headlines. Why I have no idea. Are people actually buying them? I wonder.

But what's great is that you can fuck with the URL and generate shirts (complete with the CNN logo) like I Prefer MSNBC or Wolf Blitzer is Hairy or Fire David Payne (senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com).

[hat tip: Jeffrey]

If you’re into food, retail, and innovation, the legendary Zingerman’s of Ann Arbor, Michigan rises to the top. This is a good company.

They are great editors

All the products they sell are good. You can’t get crap olive oil from Zingerman’s. You can’t get bad vinegar from Zingerman’s. You can’t get bad bread or bad cheese or anything bad at Zingerman’s. They seriously care about the quality of their products and often have a personal relationship with the people who make them.

They let you taste stuff

If you go to their store in Ann Arbor you can taste the oil, taste the vinegar, taste the honey. They’re confident in their product and they want you to be comfortable with your purchase. I’m sure it increases sales as well.

They have fun

Go to their store or pick up their catalog and you’ll see what I mean. They don’t take themselves too seriously. Their entire catalog is hand illustrated too which is always fun.

They teach the Zingerman’s way

They have classes on the The Art of Giving Great Service and a class called Small Giants which they describe as:

Are you struggling with how to grow your business? Do you feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of “opportunities” that confront you? Does the idea of growing as big as you can as fast as you can leave you uninspired (and exhausted)? In researching his book, Bo Burlingham uncovered a whole group of companies that chose alternative routes to success. Learn what qualities distinguish these organizations and explore whether or not the Small Giants’ path is a viable route for you.

They even offer an unconventional finance class:

No, we’re not talking Enron-style bending, but solid, ethically-oriented ways to make great finance a successful part of the organization at every level instead of just hiding it in the accounting office. We do weird stuff like teach finance classes to line cooks; post our financial performance on wall-mounted white boards; calculate how many scones we have to sell to buy a new oven; teach costing and pricing classes to our front-line crew; post service and quality bottom-line measurements right next to our financial scores; and share the winnings with as many people as possible.

They’re curious

If they find something they really like they’ll sell it even though it doesn’t fit into their traditional categories. Here’s a list of “the great unknowns “ they’re currently offering.

They’ve taken their time

They’ve built their business the old fashioned way and stayed true to their roots in Ann Arbor. They’ve been around since 1982. Started as one small corner deli. 25 years later, the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses employs over 450 people and generates annual sales of over $30 million.

Next time you are in Ann Arbor, check out Zingerman’s Deli. Or, order some stuff mail order. I think you’ll love it.

Update: Here’s a piece from Inc. calling Zingerman’s the coolest small company in America.

The Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association has just published a book entitled “The Lawyers guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together” It was written by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.

Chapter 14 is “Simple Project Management: Basecamp”. Maybe it’s time to change my mind about lawyers.

Thanks to Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell for including Basecamp in the book. A lot of lawyers ask us about how they can use Basecamp in their practice. Your book lends credibility to the cause.

[Hat tip: Brian Christiansen]

For about the last year we’ve been using an internal app we developed called In/Out. This tool grew out of our need to keep track of what people are doing right now, plus the last few things people have completed.

We used to do this in Campfire. At the beginning of every day people would check [in] with a list of things they wanted to do. At the end of the day they’d check [out] with a list of things they actually did. It was a good way to see what people had planned for the day, and what actually happened that day.

Twice a day updates weren’t enough

But once in the morning and once at the end of the day wasn’t really enough information to know what people were working on right now. So we often asked “Matt, what are you working on?” or “Sam, what’s keeping you busy right now?” We knew there had to be a better way. Interrupting people just to find out what they were doing was counterproductive.

In/Out was born

So we built a little tool in a couple days called In/Out. In/Out let everyone set their current status (“Working on the Affiliate Program” or “Preparing for my presentation on Friday”), plus In/Out allowed you to make journal entries for the things you’ve finished (“Updated book proposal” or “Modernized list reordering” or “Deployed Backpack calendar reminders”). People were encouraged to be as specific as they wanted to be.

One screen, left and right

Your stuff was on the left and everyone else’s stuff was on the right. It was a one-screen app with everything right in front of you. It was killer. We quickly got a handle on who was busy on this and who finished that.

Here’s what it looks like:

Last week we released a redesigned project switcher in Basecamp. The project switcher lets you move between projects when you are inside another project without having to go back to the Dashboard.

A video

The best way to get a feel for the change, and why we made the change, is to watch a before and after video (below).

NOTE: Unfortunately the text on the video is distorted when scaled down to the size required to fit in this post, but you can watch the full size version which will bring it all into focus.

How we got there

Ryan started by mocking up the first version of the idea. It was a two column list of the last 20 projects you accessed. The grouping by client was derived from the project list in the Dashboard sidebar. It was basically a miniaturized version of that list.

Then we added a “(continued…)” blurb at the top of the second column if the client’s projects spanned two columns:

The idea was OK, but it wasn’t really clear enough. All the projects were still being treated equally. 20 most recent is nice, but there are probably a few on that list that are accessed a lot more than the others.

I mocked up a new version with more recent projects on the left and the rest on the right:

Our friend Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World book is available for pre-order. It’s already in the Top 40 books on Amazon. Here’s to hoping it cracks the Top 10! Go Gary!

The Newseum displays over 600 daily newspaper front pages from around the world in their original, unedited form (they also have a map version). Pretty cool.

Dave Bednarski, a Signal vs. Noise reader, sent over a really cool Mac OS X Automator script (download the script) to pull the front pages from the papers you like and combine them into a single PDF. It’s a great way to build your own front-page-only headline newspaper!

Download the Automator Script (original updated by Karim)

A few weeks ago I spoke at the WebApp Summit in San Diego. This was a UIE (User Interface Engineering) event. It was the first one I’ve spoken at, and the first time I met the folks in charge of UIE, but they made me feel as if I’ve known them for years.

Jared Spool, the guy in charge, and Christine Perfetti, the VP & Managing Director, are solid people. Engaged, interesting, kind, friendly, down-to-earth, and curious. They took great care of the speakers, put on a nice show, and Jared broke the ice with his magic (literally — he’s an aspiring magician and did tricks on stage between presenters).

But the one thing that really sold me on these folks is why they invited me to speak in the first place.

UIE professes a user testing and research driven methodology. We have a different point of view on how to build usable and useful products. Most folks who make their living on testing and research would not invite someone with a significantly different approach to speak directly to their customers. But UIE knows that different perspectives are ultimately good things for their customers.

Just like how Amazon lets their competitors sell against them on Amazon’s product pages, or how Progressive Insurance gives you the quotes for their competitors, UIE is a purveyor of valuable information, not just their information. I think that shows the mark of confidence and a genuine interest in helping people make good decisions. Shielding people from opinion because it’s not your opinion is petty and shallow. UIE is smart to avoid that tack. They know well rounded customers, a.k.a. informed shoppers, are ultimately better customers.

So big thanks to Jared and Christine for being good people. We wish you continued success.