Slack Case Study
UXDI POMEGRANATE | FALL 2019
Intro/Overview
Slack is a collaboration chat room that allows you to work together and more efficiently. It allows you to organize communications by channels for group discussions and share information with individuals via private message. This all is available in a single app that can operate across desktops and mobile devices.
The Slack app is designed to replace email as your primary method of communication and it is often referenced as an “email killer”. However, it was more so designed to reduce the amount of internal office email, while improving team synergy and information sharing. People primarily use Slack for a company’s internal communication or for any group situation where you want a way to chat to a bunch of people easily.
Roles/Responsibilities
The Slack app redesign is an individual case study that was developed by students from the Experience Design Immersive Program in General Assembly. The first interview was done in collaboration with a classmate from the program, meanwhile, the rest were completed by myself.
Problem Space/Area
The goal of this project is to gain a deep understanding of pain points when people use the app and to learn what new features a potential user needs. I conducted my user research over three user testing periods. In the first user test, the research showed that most students are frustrated with the number of notifications and the interface for channels when they first signed up for the app.
From the first user test, we understand that there needs to be a better way to learn site instructions so that they can navigate the app more intuitively. In addition, the user also wishes to have significantly more control over notification options.
- How might we reduce user frustration on initial login?
- How might we help the user individually customize notifications to suit their situation?
Users/Audience
The target users that were focused on in this case study are General Assembly students who use Slack as a communication tool. GA students use Slack as their primary method of communication and sharing files/links to replace email. I interviewed 5 students to know more about their first Slack experience, why do they use Slack, what are their frustration when they use Slack, and if they are willing to suggest improvements in the app. I conducted three user tests into one unique persona to summarize their pain points, goals, and needs regarding the app.
Scope and Constraints
This project is occurring during Fall 2019 in the GA UXDI course. Students had two weeks to complete this project. There was no budget and very few parameters besides following the UX design process. It was difficult finding people to test the prototype in such a short time.
Process
I conducted 15 usability tests over three design phases. First, I interviewed five existing users. Next, I identified insights, pain points, problem statements, and created personas based on the research. Once the issues were comprehensively understood, possible improvements could be implemented and tested once more to see if usability has improved. Once more, I had 5 users test out my low-fidelity prototype. Based on the feedback, furthermore, improvements and modifications were made to the mid-fidelity wireframe which increased functionality even more.
Research
- Interview questions/results
I first prepared questions to serve as a loose guideline during the interview process. I then tried to understand how important the role communication plays in their life. After that, I asked how participants balance their personal life with their professional life about communication tools. The participants were all GA students with ages ranging from their mid-20’s to mid-’30s, with some knowledge in technical backgrounds.
- Insights
From the interviews, I know that users will consider the use of the platform when they use Slack. Users find the mobile app to be more difficult to navigate compared to the web app. Users are confused about the use of channels when they first sign in and they were frustrated with the number of notifications received every day.
- Platform preferences. Users will consider the use of the platform when they use Slack.
- Professional Use. Companies use it as an internal communication tool.
- Collaboration and Communication: Students use it as a primary communication tool to collaborate with team members when working on school projects.
- Confused interface. Users are confused about the use of channels when they first sign in.
- Notification Toggle Control. Users were frustrated with the number of notifications received.
- Persona
My user persona is Brianny Williams. Brianny is studying Data Science at General Assembly. She uses Slack as her primary method of communication and file/link sharing to replace emails. She was very confused when she was first signed in and she had no idea about the use of channels. She was also frustrated with the number of notifications that she was receiving every day. However, she couldn’t turn off notifications entirely since she was afraid that she might miss important messages from her classmates and teachers. My goal is to make Slack more intuitive for Brianny Williams.
Problem Statement
The user needs a way to learn site instructions so that they can navigate the site smoothly. How might we provide an app that is easier to navigate and understand while giving users more control over notifications?
Design
- Sketches
Once I understood the issues that needed to be fixed; I started by sketching basic wireframes. I sorted out the things that I needed to add and the things I wanted to take out from the current UI.
- Wireframes
Once the low-fidelity mockups were finished, the next step would be working with Sketch. The ultimate goal was to keep the overall interface as simple as possible. One of the features that were created is the home screen which was the most complicated screen to organize as it holds a lot of crucial information to the user; therefore it needed to be clean and easy to read. I split the home screen into two parts. The channel section and direct message section. The channel section shows the latest channel notifications and the direct message part shows the most recent message.
- Prototype
In the research state, we found out that users are frustrated with the number of notifications. By clicking on the private message page, it allows you to mute individual notifications or snooze the message for a specific time. On the notification page, the user will see the most recent updates made to the app.
- Usability Testing
The purpose of the testing was to determine how user-friendly possible modifications would be based on user insight. A solution was designed and roughly implemented to test possible features. Participants were told to complete three sets of tasks. The tasks asked them to locate the notification button, mute messages for a certain amount of time, and navigate through the pages. Some issues were identified during the testing process. While testing the first feature, it was quickly discovered that there was a problem with users finding the right screen page to mute messages. Sixty percent of participants were unable to complete this task since they had difficulty finding specific features. However, on tasks two and three, ninety percent of participants understood the flow and enjoyed the overall experience.
- Any Pivots
1. Testing overall showed that the mute function could be applied on more than one screen.
2. The bottom bar icons need to be re-designed again. As recommended by a user, the icon is too small to be recognized.
Outcomes/Results/Next Steps
I’m not completely satisfied with how the home page turned out, but I think it delivers the important information and messages without overcrowding the screen too much. In the next step, I would remove the direct message part on the home screen and map out the flow for the snooze message feature to limit the steps on the app.
What I learned from the process and the usability studies is to understand human behavior by creating user personas that were created as a result of this project.