Adding an Inbox Feature in Basecamp
Goal: To create a centralized inbox for messages, pings, and discussions in Basecamp (for educators)
Solution
Designed a centralized inbox for the home page that would list the recent messages, pings, and discussions. Users could sort by communication type or filter by project.
Users can still use the pings, messages, and discussions as before, but the home page inbox offers a convenient way to keep all your current conversations accessible.
The design of the new inbox feature maintained Basecamp’s minimal styling and the focus on doing a single task.
A preview of the pings or messages can be viewed right from the inbox as a pop-up modal. This gives quick access to the message and eliminated the need to click on the project, file, or ping.
Current Pain-points
Students prefer to converse in a 1:1 environment and are more responsive to the ping feature rather than the discussion board. Because the conversation about their project exists in two places, the dialogue about their work becomes separated from where the project prompt and project submission are located.
It is not easy to recall Pings with multiple people. This became inconvenient when students were asked to work in small groups.
Communication about a project or topic becomes disjointed because pings, messages, and discussions are separate threads and in separate locations.
Hard to search or organize previous pings.
