Why Basil.Chat ?
Basil.chat has been live for a week and the response from the design and tech community has been overwhelming. We have received a lot of feedback requests from different parts of the world (an article on this is coming soon). But one question people have been constant asking us is:
“Where did this idea come from? Why was this service created”
Therefor this article mentioning the origins of basil.chat (originally written on product hunt here)
Being designers ourselves we understand the need and opportunity to talk to someone and get different opinions. It is extremely helpful during any creative process. Sometimes you are simply stuck or you feel an emotional bias, then you try to bounce your ideas against someone. This interaction between creatives is essential for the work you do and to improve your skills. This was the genesis of the idea in some ways. Another reason why we thought Basil could be interesting was a very personal one. We would never publish our designs on a forum to get feedback. In every forum the trolls and the negative comments really put you down. With Basil Chat you are able to get feedback which only you can read. This creates an intimacy that invites people like us who would never share their work in progress with an unknown person or a big audience to get an opinion. We do our best to encourage people to stick to their own work and the thinking behind it but also try new approaches. We also try to understand why they made a certain design decision by asking them relevant questions. Basil Chat also hopes to make people question who their work should cater for i.e. the people who will be affected by the designs thy are creating. And finally, we infuse it with some theory, best practices and an actionable next step. Every feedback has two goals:
On one hand, the goal is to give new inputs for your current work. On the other hand, the intention is to share design insights and knowledge in an informal way. Currently we are amazed people have shown in Basil Chat. We appreciate all the incoming design requests and it inspires us to continue improving our service.
