How do you improve Slack?

1. Working professionals (using enterprise product)
2. Students (using free or paid version)
3. Casual users who are part of different slack group (using free or paid version)

Working professional might be the largest user base for this product as this is an enterprise product used by many multinationals, hence taking this persona for further analysis

Goal - To improve user engagement, in terms of working professional it will be to improve their work productivity

User painpoints

1. Missing the notifications user is tagged in (user is not responding on time), this could happen when user has paused the notification for focused work and whenever they come back they are overwhelmed with the messages and might miss critical messages

2. Can't add another (new) member in conversation while conversing with existing members. Either a group needs to be created or else separate conversation need to be started where comeple context of previous conversation gets lost

3. Most of the conversations (e.g. sharing MOM, action items) regarding projects are done on slack group (separate group for each of the project). It is difficult to track the status of the project at any point of time

4. In case user comes back post snoozing off the notifications, he/she is overwhelmed with the amount of conversation and has to go through each and every thread

5. User getting distracted from slack notification, in case it is triggered during a call (meeting) or presentation

Potential Solutions

1. Potential options for solving "missing the notifications" issue

a) Feature of reminding others on any particular thread after some time, in case user does not respond within stipulated time period

b) Ability to tag message as important if they have an ask for decision making vs separating informational or FYI messages by separate tag

c) Message priority can be decided using UI (numbers in blud, yellow, red). There should be a way to distinguish between channel tags , user name mentions or someone sending direct message

2. Can't add another (new) member

Allow users to add new folks without creating separate conversation group or channel. this can be 2 step process, users can chose to create separate conversations or can have the capability to add new user in same conversations

3. Project Tracking issue

Either an integration with project tracking tool or an inbuild feature, that gives a glimpse of project status along with any red items which require urgent attention

4. Overwhelemed with conversation on returning back

A summary of the thread or conversation can be presented if user wants or he/she can chose to go through all the details - this would require AI / ML functionality for implementation

5. Getting distracted from notifications

Slack already has an integration with calendar (google calendar) and can utilize meeting schedules to pause the notification if user wants to, so that they can focus on work conversation during the calls

(this capability can be implemented either only for meetings or huddles or slack calls or all, this can be evaluated)

Solution Evaluation

S- Small, M- Medium, L- large

1.

a) Effort - S Impact - M/L

b) Effort - S Impact - M

c) Effort - S/M Impact - M

2. Effort - S Impact - M/L

3. Effort - L Impact - L (Effort can be medium if a solution is integrated, if it is build effort can be large)

4. Effort -L Impact - M/L

5. Effort -S Impact M/H

Recommendation

Low hanging fruits #5 & #2

Can be developed with meium effort and have good impact - #1

Long term plan - #3 & #4

Metrics

1. #no.of users reading & responding to converations (before & after feature launch)

#time taken from message sent to response given --is there any reduction in this time gap (before and after launch of product)

2. #no. of such conversations created by adding new member/ members

3. #no. of times this tool used
4. # no.of times summary page viewed

5. # no .of users using this snooze off functionality during calls

Vishal Shah · Answer 2 · 2021-05-08T23:50:06+0000

Slack is a unique messaging engine unlike Zoom / MS Teams. Slack enables creating channels and also groups. Groups you can't add people once created but in channels you can add / remove as desired. Also, Slack enables one to respond to every line that has it's unique carriage return so if someone had typed a paragraph then it's possible for others to respond to a specific things noted. It also incorporates emoticons and such to make it more fun and engaging. There is also a conference dialing feature (ft / just audio). Is there anything else I missed?

Clarification Qs:

Are there any specific reasons why we are attempting to improve Slack? I ask to check if we have recieved specific complaints that we are trying to resolve, maybe we are trying to enter a new business market, maybe there is a metric that Slack wants to go pursue, etc. (I: No). Is there a specific user segment we are trying to address? Do we have any constraints on budget or resources? Is there a certain time period within which we want to release improvements?

I: No...all upto you.

Assumptions and Focus:

1. My solutions or will possibly be applicable worldwide.

2. I will mostly focus on desktop since while Slack does have mobile version, in my opinion and experience, Slack is most used extensively on desktop.

Approach:

As a Lead PM at Cox, what helps me is knowing our biz objective since that may drive what features we define or how we shape the product's future. I have also found it helpful to think of specific users who may be impacted and their needs, sort of trying to put myself in their shoes, since that helps me define solutions that would hopefully determine success. ARe you ok with this approach?

BO: Considering Slack is still in growth stage, I think it's important to focus on retention. If I can retain people and have them use my product more + leads to prevention of loosing corporate contracts if employees are productive using it.

Users: There are 2 broad set of users of slack: businesses and consumers. As I think of businesses we can break that down to: non-profit, small business, large biz. Consumers are 1)students 2)professionals using it at work for work. I would like to focus on professionals which also covers business segment. Needs of students are quite limited to the needs of a professional. + While post COVID world has changed, prior to Covid most of studetns meetings happened in person. Studetns are usually in a single location limiting need for conferencing + studetns tend to use whatsapp and SMS and their project communications are shot lived while professionals are on long lived projects. Plus students are never going to generate revenue but corporations would so solving for professionals is better.

User Frustrations: Based on personal experiences here is what frustrates me: 1)channels still result in difficulty in focusing conversations in a group. 2)My conf conversation is lost so unless I took notes I am out of luck 3) I can't understand few people since people across the globe. 4)Difficult for me to find specific conversation easily and I don't have time to spend 30 min looking for it.

I think these are decent set of frustrations / needs so would like to prioritize it. Since I find it difficult here to nail down to 1, I will go with #1 and #2/#4. I realize that #2 and #4 can essentially be summed up as "difficult to find conversation later on". These 2 because I realize #3 is an edge case and also after couple conversations we get used to accent differences and we start understanding them. + #1 and #2/#4 does cover most needs of a professional that occurs quite often.

Solution:

1a) Ability to create sub channels. Example of this might be me creating a channel for defining API Plans feature on a APIM product but within that I could have sub-channels for UX, Security, Customer needs, user feedback, etc. Currently, I end up creating a channel per feature and since it's not a sub channel I can;'t collapse and ultimately I end up with too many channels reducing my focus and efficiency.

1b) It should remind me to possibly delete channel / sub-channels if not active for x length of time that's customizable. So I can possibly right click on a channel / sub-channel and go to settings to customize these things.

2a) Enable me to record a meeting but also while recording transcirbe it.

2b) Enable me to highlight a real time transcription and quickly annotate or save as is. I think of this user action as it's transcribing and I highlight it and right click and hit save or clikc annotate upon whch a text menu pops up for me to quickly type a phrase or so and save. Notes ability for me to link to certain conversations and save it with annotation. So when I am trying to find something I can quickly first reference Notes.

2c) Search capability at every level (group, channel, sub-channel as well as in the recorded meeting and transcription). This way if I am trying to find something a month later and know that in one of those meetings we discussed about REACT code or let's say Backways compatiblity of APIs, I can just search across Slack for "REACT" and it will pull up specific conversations / recorded meetings. If my search is found in recorded meetings it will suggest me "skip to 5:03".

I would like to prioritize while keepign in mind what might help significantly improve user experience and also result in higher retention. In the interest of time, I would just provide evaluate for chosen soution. I would go with 2a-2c. I choose multiple here since these go together. On a scale of 1-5, 5 being teh highest, Reach(5) ValueAdd(5), F(5). 1 is not bad and definitely extremely easy but I don't think it will help move the needle since in some ways it seems to be mere UI / organization improvement. If I had to absolutely choose 1, I would go with 2a being the MVP.

There are trade-offs such as in accurate and inefficient search results leading to loss of trust which could actually drive current customers away. There could also result in too much annotation which could over period of time clutter results and feeling like it's a Slack Google leading to reduced efficiency and increase time searching. We may need to periodically purge or give user the ability to decide waht to purge and remind them of doing that periodically. All these should be settings based.

I would evalue success of attaining retention of Slack here by measuring over QTR:

a) # annotations / user

b) # of users w/ atleast 1 annotation /qtr

c) % of users using search feaure / qtr

d) amount of time spent using Slack overall

Overall, I thought about improving Slack for professionals since professionals use Slack more than students and these are the group of customers that can drive revenue for Slack. I came up with healthy list of solutions that could be boiled down to enabling user to retain key information and search. I believe these features will help retain customers like me who have to use MS Teams for things that Slack lacks and yet not have my needs fulfilled 100%.

Satish Nandi · Answer 3 · 2021-05-01T06:30:41+0000

Describe the Product
Slack offers many IRC-style features, including persistent chat rooms (channels) organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging. The Slack is offered on mac, ios, android and web portals. It uses a freemium model, the free version offer almost all the feature with some minor restriction. Any normal user can fully be functional with free version until they need increased scale and backup storage.
Clarify the Scope
What is the goal of improvement ?
Below are few of the things that can targeted, I will be picking one of them & provide details of my choice
1) Improve product features beyond current offering to improve increased adoption
2) Simplify the solution to attract users outside of typical tech industry. I.e user of Whatsapp, (increase Adoption)
3) Increase revenue
4) Add features for current user base.
Negotiate a smaller scope
As Slack is largely popular with tech user base, I like to pick the adoption of non-tech users as a goal. This user base would be family, friends and targeted add-on features to this base.
Choose the Goal
The goal is to offer a slack solution for non-techs and enable family & friends group feature-set.
Through these features, the ultimate goal is to increase the user base.
List User Groups
There are distinct needs for various user groups.
1) Developed world users
2) World users
3) Under developed countries

Features set for each of this base is as follows
Developed world users : These large the current tech base. These users even in undeveloped countries have different needs. Usually busy tech or higher income individual want to get their family needs i.e stay in touch with kids, plan for shopping. in between their busy office schedule. So this needs integrated solution current offering and the new family friendly features.

World users - This offer complicates the platform, the solution has to deal with limitation one might have in international marketplace. Regulations, hardware limitations of platforms. On the other hand, deal with enriched user experience demands as well.

Under developed countries.
- Probably limited hardware capabilities & also bandwidth limitation
- Regulatory issues
- The needs of this user base is different than the final world problems.
Select particular Group/s.
For this discussion, let pick the markets like US, Europe (Developed) or affluent user base of India, China who have similar needs of US.(Developed world users)
List User Needs
1) Might help to have single application to deal with office/tech and home use.
2) Needs features for home use i.e Home activities, interfacing with kids for their home, school activities, calender sync with kids and family.
3) Reduce the need for other independent application people use to keep up with chores. Shopping list, bill pays, share payments (paypal like)
Call out user pain points specifically if you can
1) People are busy with office work and have very limited time. In order to organize themselves, they end up picking other applications to manage their needs. This leave them with too many apps to deal.
2) Integration of office time management and personal time get murky, you start adding many of the tasks on office calendar and to-dos (to avoid the issue #1)
3) The slack is not a cool app, either your spouse or kids want to get on to be in sync with you. It needs a facelift.
Prioritize the user needs/painpoints
User needs/Pinpoint priority with IMPACT, EFFORT, and COST
1) H, M, M
2) This is a pain, largely covered in #1
3) H, H, L it is high impact as it helps to get others onboard and implimentaton cost might be low, but effort to get adoption is a difficult one.

In order to achieve this narrow feature set/user base. All of them are required otherwise it is not a vaible project.
List Product Ideas
A New integrated for office/tech and home use. It enables builtin features for home needs or have mechanism to enhance with plugin but still a single application experience.
Define the success matrix
# Number of home feature activation
# Engagement on home features, number of message, activities/user/family/a period of time.

Lokesh Kumar R · Answer 4 · 2021-05-01T05:08:26+0000

Clarifications:

Slack is present in both app and website. Are we focussing on any particular one? Your Choice

Slack has an enterprise version (premium) and a normal one. Are we focussing on any specific type? No. You can choose any group which you think you'll have to focus on to attain our goal.

What is the Goal behind our task? Improve User Engagement

Was there any particular problem that caused us to improve slack? Or is it just another stint trying to improvise ourselves? Its been long since any major upgrade. Thus, we are planning to improve slack to be more unique and qppealing to users.

With the above clarifications, I would like to focus on the finding the different user segments and prioritze one form them. Then, I would like to list various pain points of that user and then prioritize one form there. With this painpoint, I would like to come up with a list of solutions that improvises slack. Finally would like to prioritize one solution from the list.

Background:

Slack is a collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done.

User Groups:

Professional Users having Enterprise Version
Professionals still being a free users
Student team working on some project

Of these I would like to prioritize the users who are professional but aren't buying for the premium version. This is because, the first category are satisfied with the product that they have already bought a self-inscribed version. While Students segment using Slack out of all Social Media is pretty rare for some school/college app is uncommon.

Pain Points

The software is so complex that users often search in Youtube and other places to know how to use it efficiently.
Slack's decentralization gives users control over which channels are created. This makes you check channels too much a day-partly to assuage FOMO and partly coz you need to know what's going on. This has bad effects on users
Conversations gets deleted after 14 days.

Of these, I would like to prioritize the second painpoint as that deals more with a user's health and improving our app to assist that will have a huge impact and will help us in user acquisition more.

Solutions:

Users on opening slack, will get a pop up asking for their shift slot of that day. On entering that, Slack starts monitoring the time spent in the app. Beyond the entered slot, Slack stops showing the red dot/ notifications automatically. Thus, users won't get distracted with constant notifications and this inturn keeps them away from checking dozens of channel out of FOMO.
Users on opening slack, the slack-bot asks them to enter list of activities that they want to do out of work and the time at which they want to start. On recording this, The Slack-bots starts giving reminder about their other activities. This'll make them stay out of slack chats and help them have a work-life balance and also helps them forget their FOMO.
We can come up with a profile wise analytics tool that measures time spent in the app and in which channels. This on checking by the users, might kick up their instincts to manage their time more wisely on their own.

Of this, I would like to prioritize 2 as this makes the user decide when to leave and thus will not affect the message that need tobe received by the user by anyway. While in the case of 1, On blocking the notification something important might get lost and this might affect the firm's functionality. When considering 2 and 3, we can see that 3 is more subtle that people might not understand the effects of that.

So, in short of these 3, I would like to proritize 2.

Success Metrics:

# of times a set of activity is listed per month per user

# of times the reminder gets snoozed continuously for 3 times

# of users use this feature per month