Behind the scenes: Basecamp to-do email design

37 signal's audience seems to be made up largely by graphic designer/art director types, who are less experienced to the field of usability or user experience, and very far removed from a/b or stat analysis type business practices. While some of these may be fairly obvious to us, you would be surprised how many very skilled graphic designers are clueless to the effects of the size of a button, only caring how nice the button looks, often making it too small.

Whenever I read one of these 'x iterations of y' emails, I always find myself thinking how obviously stupid some of the earlier iterations are. I mean, of course an actual check box in an email is confusing, why would you ever do that? And then they go back to a checkbox graphic, but this time it is ticked!

Is this a case of hindsight is 20-20, or something else?

Am I the only one who likes Version 11 much more than Version 12? The problem with these iteration posts is when my personal tastes don't coincide with the end result, I guess.

Thanks for posting this as it helps demonstrate that 37Signals' signature visual style is not developed without tweaking and fedback and effort.