Gorgeous replacement for the GranSport.

Impressive. [via Sam via tumble]

So far we’ve talked about the big picture and permissions and groups. Next we’re going to talk about the welcome screen and workspace tabs.

The Blank Slate
Back on September 19, 2003 I posted a message about the “Blank Slate.” The blank slate is the first screen someone sees when they log into a web-app for the first time. It’s what they see when there isn’t any data. It’s the critical first impression.

We pay a lot of attention to the blank slate states. I think Highrise has at least 8 of them. One for almost ever major feature and some special “almost-blank slates” for screen with just a little bit of data. Some blank slates go away instantly while others go away after you’ve done something three times.

The Welcome Tab
One blank slate I wanted to focus on for this Highrise preview is the Welcome State. This is the first screen you see after you’ve created your Highrise account. It gives a quick link to get started with the primary feature (adding people), a summary of the key benefits of Highrise, and some other things you can do too.

This is valuable information. It’s a great “home base.” However, most blank slates go away after you’ve seen them once. They go away once data has been entered into the system. That’s usually the right thing to do, but blank slates can also be comforting places to return to if you ever get lost or confused or just want to go back somewhere that’s “safe.”

So we decided in Highrise we’d make the initial blank slate its own tab called “Welcome.” You can keep the welcome tab around for 1 minute or for 3 months or forever. When you feel comfortable enough with Highrise you can choose to hide the welcome tab forever.

The Workspace Tabs
The other thing we wanted to present in this third Highrise preview are the workspace tabs.

Like most web apps, Highrise has a set of permanent tabs. In Highrise they are Dashboard, Contacts, Tasks, and Cases.

Next to those tabs are the workspace tabs.

The workspace tabs are built dynamically based on the last 5 people, companies, or cases you’ve viewed. They keep the recently or frequently accessed subjects near by. It’s especially handy when you’re working with or jumping between a small set of people. Instead of having to browse or search for these people each time, the workspace tabs keep them close at hand.

Sign up to have a chance at a Golden Ticket
As we get closer to launch we’ll begin issuing “golden tickets.” Golden ticket holders will have access to sign-up for Highrise prior to the public launch. To sign up for a chance at a golden ticket, be sure to sign up for the Highrise announcement list

Plum TV is looking for a Ruby on Rails Web Developer in New York, East Village.

Bandzoogle.com is looking for a Lead Designer in Montreal (or telecommute).

Federated Media is looking for an Experienced Web Developer in Sausalito, CA.

DePauw University is looking for a Web Specialist in Greencastle, IN.

Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia is looking for a PHP Web Developer in Atlanta, GA.

Stamen Design is looking for an Interactive Designer; Online Maps & Live Data Visualization in San Francisco, CA.

Acme Auto Leasing, LLC is looking for a Ruby Programmer or Flex/Flash Expert (Apollo) in New Haven, CT.

CityMind Group is looking for a User Interface Designer to telecommute.

ActiveState is looking for a Web Developer (contract) in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

Geonetric is looking for a Production Designer to Cedar Rapids, IA.

BustedTees.com + CollegeHumor.com is looking for a PHP/MYSQL Developer in NYC.

XFI is looking for a Requirements Designer / Information Architect to Bathesda, MD.

Atlantic Media Company is looking for a Web Developer in Washington, DC.

Atlantic Media Company is looking for a Ruby on Rails Developer in San Francisco CA.

Find a job or put your design or programming in job in front of the best on the Job Board.

Last week we posted the first preview of Highrise. In that preview we introduced the product in broad strokes. With each additional preview we’ll be covering one facet of Highrise in detail.

With preview 2 we’ll be focusing on permissions and groups.

The “keepshare” scenario
Highrise is a shared contact manager. That means that everyone in your organization can use it to keep their contacts and contact history together online. While that’s convenient, it does bring up some visibility questions. There are things you may want to keep to yourself and other things you may want to share with others. We call this scenario “keepshare.”

What if you have someone in your contacts list that other people in your company shouldn’t know about? An investor or a sensitive contact that hasn’t been made public yet. Or what if only some people should be able to see the person? There’s also the case where someone should be visible to everyone, but certain notes about that person should only be visible to some people. Now what?

The solution
We spent a lot of time on permissions in Highrise. The bulk of the code in Highrise is permissions code. We tried a lot of different systems and a lot of different concepts. We finally went with the clearest solution from a customer experience standpoint. There were technically superior solutions, but they required too much mental overhead to understand. Clarity is key so we aimed for that.

In the spirit of open collaboration we wanted everything to default to “Everyone.” If something is in the system, everyone in the system can see it by default. However, you can also make something visible so “Only I can” see it. Or you can “Select a group” of people to see it. Or you can “Select people” to see it. “Groups” are predefined, “people” are are selected on the fly.

Groups
One of the things we realized early on is that it would be useful to be able to predefine groups of people to use with the permission system. For example, there may be situations where “Partners” should be able to see one thing, “Investors” another thing, the “Sales” department something else, and the “Board of Directors” some other things. Highrise Groups lets you add people to groups so you can quickly set permissions on people, notes, companies, and cases (more on cases in another post).

Stay tuned for the next Highrise preview.

Sign up to have a chance at a Golden Ticket
As we get closer to launch we’ll begin issuing “golden tickets.” Golden ticket holders will have access to sign-up for Highrise prior to the public launch. To sign up for a chance at a golden ticket, be sure to sign up for the Highrise announcement list.

Have a heavy load that needs lifting? Have the kids do it.

This picture was taken from a big heavy box delivered to our office today. We get the point of the illustration, but we couldn’t help but chuckle about how the people look like 9 year olds. Thanks for the photo, BB.

Every once in a while we get an email from a customer asking about how permissions work with our products. They’re almost always asking how to prevent someone from doing something. “How do we prevent someone from posting a message or adding a to-do or downloading a file? How can we make our project site read only except for a select few?”

When we set out to build Basecamp we decided that it was going to be about communication, not control. It is our belief that when you collaborate with trusted parties it’s important for people to be able to communicate any way they see fit. Preventing someone from saying or doing something often breaks these free flowing communication channels and introduces miscommunication or silence—two cancers of collaboration.

We do have some permissions in Basecamp. There are some basic controls over who can do what, but as far as products like Basecamp go, Basecamp would be considered among the least controlling. If we started all over today we’d probably have even less permissions and less controls. Some of the controls we’ve put in place have turned out to make collaboration harder, not easier.

Back to the customers… When they ask how to prevent people from doing this or that I usually reply with something like “Have you tried asking them not to do this or that? If you don’t want them to upload files just ask them not to. If you don’t want them to create to-do lists just ask them not to. Communicate with them as you would if you weren’t using software.”

And to my delight, their replies are usually “Great idea! I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll try that and see how it works.” Follow-up emails usually come back as success stories.

Simply communicating with people about your expectations of their behavior is often the simplest and most effective solution. It’s respectful, it’s kind, it’s fair. And if someone does something you didn’t want them to do just remind them politely that they weren’t supposed to do that. They’ll almost always get it the second time.

So next time you are looking for more control, consider more communication. It may surprise you.

How come when I search for Chicago or Tucson or any other US city on Weather.com I don’t get a single pixel of weather data on the results screen?

I get links for ski forcasts. Links if I’m getting married. Links to traffic information. Links to city parks. Links to lawn & garden resources. But no temperature, no precipitation, no forecast.

If I search for a specific zip code I do get weather, but searching for a city name gives me just a list of matches (the first one is the one I want 99% of the time). Just show me the weather and give me the other links and matches as secondary options, not primary suggestions.

Who’s making decisions over there?

The time has come. Today we begin to open the kimono on Highrise (formerly known as Sunrise).

The name is Highrise
The first order of business is the name. We were advised against using Sunrise because of potential trademark conflicts. Highrise was actually the name we came up with before Sunrise so we’re going back to the original. Now on to more exciting things…

The schedule
Over the next few weeks we’ll be revealing screenshots, descriptions, concepts, stories, videos, design decisions, and more. Then we’ll launch. We’ve been using Highrise internally for the past couple of months. We’re very happy with it and excited to let you use it too.

So what is Highrise?
Highrise is a shared contact manager that helps you keep track of who you talk to, what was said, and what to do next. Like Basecamp helps you collaborate on projects, Highrise helps you collaborate on people. You can use it alone or with your co-workers. You can think of it as a company-wide, web-based, shared address book with a few twists.

Why did we build it?
We talk with a lot of people. Vendors, lawyers, accountants, journalists, customers, etc. Keeping track of who said what, when they said it, and what needs to be done next is complicated. A jumble of notes on paper, in email drafts folders, and post-it notes is a surefire way to miss this and forget that. Further, we wanted to build a shared tool so I could read up on conversations David had with John Doe before I called John Doe. Knowing the history of a company’s past interaction with people is a great way to save time and make future conversations more valuable.

Scenarios
Highrise was built to satisfy common scenarios like:

• See all follow-ups scheduled for this week
• Review Susan’s notes before calling her contact at the printer
• Set a reminder to write Steve a thank-you note next Friday
• Review all conversations I’ve had with Chris from Apple
• Organize interview responses for potential candidates online
• See a list of all the designers your company has hired in the past
• Enter notes from a call with a potential client
• See all the people your company knows at The New York Times
• Schedule a follow-up sales call with Jim in 3 months
• Review all the people tagged “Leads 2006”

Highrise helps you keep track of people and related actions. Almost everything we do in business revolves around people. At the other end of every phone call or email or letter is a person. Highrise helps you keep track of these people, these conversations, these interactions, and what needs to be done next.

Stay tuned for the next preview of Highrise. If you want to be notified when we launch, please enter your email address on the Highrise mailing list signup form.

DWR’s annual Champagne Chair Award finalists await your vote. This is my favorite design competition because it’s entirely about embracing constraints.

If you’re curious, here are the the finalists and winners from each round.