Basecamp - project management in a nice package

Basecamp

Basecamp is a collaberative project management tool. I first heard about it on a usability training course with HFI and it immediately struck me how sleek the design was. Currently at work we employ Microsoft Project Office, which is very powerful tool and can provide a good overview of resources and project timelines.

I have however recently signed up to see what Basecamp really has to offer. I'm 5 minutes in and I had to come and scream "WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS!" It is incredibly easy to get started, I decided to use my personal website as a project to get myself started, it was easy to create a project and get started with to do lists and milestones.
As a company we have started to adapt an agile methodology, which involves a lot of post-it notes and index cards. This is good as they are flexible and easy to change and sort, but it has often struck me that they are also easy to loose. Perhaps Basecamp can offer a collaberative workspace where stuff can't get lost but still has the flexability needed. In addition is provides a message board type service so discussions over issues and ideas can be had. While I do believe that face to face conversations are the best sort, this cannot always be the case if people are working from home or if you want to collaberate with someone who is in a different country.
Having everything centralised would also provide us with an excellent source to review during at after a project as everything would be in one place, and would help us understand how we reached the decisions we did, something I think that we loose now in stand up meetings. It may also make documentation easier to produce.

From my perspective as an interface designer looking at this application I'm delighted with the design. It is customisable to fit with the branding of the project. There is some excellent use of AJAX, especially when ticking a to do item off the list. Also in terms of accessibility the font size is resizable so it will not be too small for those who don't like or struggle with smaller fonts. Most importantly I found it really easy to start working with straight away.

An excellent tool that looks and feels great too.