Website and product development is restless. After strategy, marketing plans, design and development comes the launch. Following launch day it’s about more than just marketing, advertising and customer service. It’s about constantly asking how the product can be more useful, how it can serve customers better and how the marketing story can be baked in. Ask customers. Collect feedback. Analyse data. Iterate and constantly improve.

37signals takes this approach. The web-based software provider makes “frustration-free web-based apps for collaboration, sharing information, and making decisions” and the products and brand stories are constantly evolving. They don’t evolve with a growing set of features. They evolve by constantly making the products, stories and communication more useful.

Details matter. Take a look at this time-lapse video of the 37signals homepage between March 2009 and January 2011. Copy, layout and design are constantly tweaked and tested to determine the most useful and effective messaging.