37 Signals Founder Jason Fried previewed a redesign today for Basecamp that has three things in mind:

1. Speed
2. Big Picture
3. Focus

It’s the first time since 2004 that Basecamp has had such an overhaul. It’s called Basecamp Next. Here’s a quick summary:

The new user interface is designed for people to see the big picture and specific aspects of a project with very fast loading to quickly drill down and navigate across projects.

Each project now lives on a single page. The latest discussions, to-do lists, files and other aspects of the project are all there for easy viewing. Ongoing projects will not show all the discussions but enough to get a picture of the latest developments. Lesser projects will include everything on one page.

To look at detailed aspects of the project, Fried says they wanted to keep it very simple. In his view, project management tools have too much chrome and too much interface and too manty buttons all the time to click. The solution is what he calls sheets. These are overlays. Click on “discussions” and the sheet for it pops up. The original page is still right there to be accessed. The UI does not get in the way. (See video below for Fried’s demo)

What you see out of this new redesign is a very fast and simple way to move around various projects with simple navigation to get a granular view.  In the demo, Fried goes in and out of different aspects of the project with minimal effort.

Services Angle

Basecamp is arguably the world’s most popular collaboration tool. I’ve used it for many projects over the years. I depend on it as much as any tool. But I have always found it a bit vexing in its navigation and ability to find things quickly. Is this better? It looks like it.

Basecamp Next is the kind of tool that we are accustomed to seeing from modern service providers. Will 37Signals show again why it is the market leader for Web-based project management? At first glance, the new UI looks compelling. What do you think?