UX Teardown of Slack (Desktop Client)
I’m doing a 3 article series of UX teardowns of sites and apps I like, and providing possible solutions to issues I see.
Each article will cover 3–5 major points and solutions — comments are welcome!
Click to jump to the other two articles: StoryCollider|Webuild
Slack Desktop Client
Slack is a lovely chat client that helps people connect over common interests.
I’ve only recently started using Slack to communicate among members of a weekly JS study group, but even so, navigating it has been difficult in some instances.
Issue 1: Exiting picture files — difficult
The first time I encountered a picture file, I had no idea where to click to close it. I was familiar with apps that made the picture disappear when you click on it, so I spent alot of time clicking on the picture — to no result.
As I was trying to get back to the KopiJS chat, I thought clicking on the icon on the left will help. However, it did nothing.
Eventually, I learnt that the small close button on the top right or the ‘esc’ key both close the picture file and returns me to the main chat channel.
Solution: I would suggest Slack allow users to return to the main chat channel when clicking on the chat icon, as that seemed most intuitive.
Personally, I will like if the picture can disappear if I click on it, as it has a greater clickable area and will be so much easier for me to toggle between the file and the chat. However, I realized that Slack allow users to zoom into the picture if they click on it, so if I remove that, I will have to find another way to implement the zoom.
Nevertheless, as users open and close images more often then zoom into them, I feel that implementing a click to disappear function will be more useful than the zoom, which can be tagged to mouse middle button scroll, or implemented with a slider at the bottom of the screen.
Issue 2: Searching for a particular discussion within chat channel
I was searching for an instance where a member asked us to vote on the new channel icon, and realized that Slack deals with searches differently from what I am accustomed to.
At first, it was refreshing. I get to see the number of instances the word ‘vote’ appeared in the channel (14), and I found this really interesting.
Slack highlights the instance where it was used in the channel:
and when you click on it, it opens out to show the messages before and after the post.
Even better, when I needed to see beyond the two messages provided in this snippet, the jump button on the top right of the condensed snippet will direct me to the chat on the left:
The post I clicked on will actually be highlighted in yellow for a second or two, and then fade out.
It was very beautiful and visually appealing as well.
However, as I scrolled up and down to read the discussion, I tend to lose track of where the word ‘vote’ is, to anchor me to my search. It is very tedious for me as the word ‘vote’ is not highlighted in the chat channel.
Solution: I will suggest that to add on to their existing search function, Slack should also implement the default search function that most browsers have, which highlights the searched term within the text itself.
If anyone’s curious, here’s the adorable final logo we voted for!
Issue 3: Uploaded Files shared across channels — Difficult to sort!
So, there are several channels within a slack chat.
In this case, there is #kopitiam, a chitchat channel, and #milodino, a study group channel.
I used #milodino more frequently, and need the files from that channel often.
However, when I need to find the files uploaded to #milodino, I realize that I’m unable to filter by channels in the uploaded files section.
Solution: Allow users to filter results according to channel within the chat group. This will help immensely as there are a ton of #kopitiam uploads which are mostly events and silly things, while the uploads from #milodino are all study related.
Conclusion
Generally, I’m still having lots of fun chatting with people on Slack, and have yet to delve into its developer collaborating tools.
For the time being, I’m just going to continue to enjoy using slack and learning!
As for the Javascript study group mentioned…Our current instructor Ken is an extremely patient teacher, so any curious beginner can pop by a Milodino session , or join us on slack via herokuapp and ask away!
Its parent channel KopiJS, is a very welcoming meetup group with a high incidence of local developers and makers, so a perfect place to check out the local scene.
Catch you at the next meetup, and don’t forget to leave a comment!
Click to jump to the other two articles: StoryCollider|Slack
