After a couple months of planning and design, we recently rolled out our new Idea Works website. I wanted to take a moment to explain our goals with the new site and little about the process we took for the refresh.

The previous version of our site was up since 2008. Our technology, product offerings, and personnel have changed quite a bit since then. We needed a new web presence to better communicate what we do, and more importantly, who we are.

More then anything, we wanted to do a better job conveying our personality through the site. Read more »

When enough knowledge is structured visually, patterns begin to emerge. The results are not only useful, but can be gorgeous as well.

Thanks to Matt for noticing this work of art in one of our projects.

As a child, I grew up hearing the legend of John Henry, a tireless steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the 1800s. Henry, a former slave, paved the way for new railroad lines by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with a 14-pound hammer. He was unmatched in speed and endurance.

One day a salesman comes to camp claiming he has a steam-powered drill that could out-drill any man. A contest ensues: John Henry vs. the Steam-Powered Drill.

After a half hour of drilling, the dust settles. The automatic drill has carved a nine-foot hole into the mountain. John Henry’s hole is fourteen feet deep. The crowd cheers only to watch in horror as Henry totters on his feet then crashes to the ground. A blood vessel has burst in his brain. He’s dead.

The lesson? Be wary of dehumanizing machines that promise advancement but come at a cost. (Plus, humans do better work anyway).

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I use Campfire for group chat every day. It’s a great way to stay connected with the rest of the team, especially since I work remotely.

Something that’s been annoying me lately are the constant messages in the Campfire stream about who is entering and leaving the room. These messages often push important content further up the page and muddy up the discussion. I’m not sure why I should care about this information in the first place, since I can already tell who is in the room by glancing at the sidebar.

There is currently no option to turn these messages off, and 37signals doesn’t have plans to build such a preference.

Chrome users can add Chromefire to gain additional options. But if you use Firefox, you’ll need a homegrown solution. It will take about 5 minutes and anyone can do it.

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Imagine you are a designer asked to help build a better way for people to find good places to eat nearby. Where do you start?

You might be thinking wireframes or mockups or prototypes. Or perhaps you just worked on an app that you can re-purpose for this project. Maybe you just stumbled across a new javascript library that could work well. But first you need to decide: iOS or Android, right?

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