Improving Product Sense : Applying WhatsApp magic to Slack in Productivity

Communication & Productivity : Core need

Communication has always been an integral part of our life. The way we communicate has drastically changed with the birth of digital apps.

We have used multiple apps during different period of time . Google Chat , Skype , Facebook messenger, Telegram . Nothing ever came close to WhatsApp which has proved to be indispensable in our lives.

For communication within work, people were still using WhatsApp for internal communication .

The need for internal communication at work was not felt until privacy and asynchronous communication became a priority and led to the birth of Microsoft Teams & Slack.

Same user : Multiple Apps - Jobs to do

Though a same person uses both Slack and WhatsApp , the jobs to do performed on both context differs.

Still the user at the core is same would expect certain functionalities to be seamless in both apps unconsciously.

Ex- One would expect a simple onboarding step when you sign up for Teams or Slack mobile app similar to a Amazon shopping app.

Though the user knows that they are different apps and have a unique purpose, unconsciously one would love to simulate a better experience by comparing the onboarding steps.

Product Sense Exercise:

I came across an article by Jackie Bavaro - PM Thought leader on exercises to improve Product Sense .

One of the exercise she talks about is applying a successful design framework of “X” to “Y” solution.

Instead of taking the typical Top down approach in improving a product like OKR & Goals , lets take a lateral approach in improving a product comparing with another one in a similar category instead of direct competitor.

In this article , i illustrate some of the use cases which can be used in slack by borrowing the concepts from WhatsApp

I am a great fan of Slack and my go to app for all business communication and let see what Slack can replicate some of the best experiences from WhatsApp to improve in the business productivity space context.

New Design Change - Slack

Slack revamped its new design with a purple layout simulating WhatsApp cleaner interface and layout with a focus on productivity and communication.

While there are debates by lot of users- why this change and when no one asked for it ? . I would certainly say - User never ask for features and product Team own only the user problem space and come out with solutions addressing them.

Though i like the revamped UI personally , i feel there is more scope to improve with respect to Slack Mobile App in context to work comparing to WhatsApp.

Improvement 1: Performance - Direct Message

Its a simple exercise . keep both the apps side by side and try to send a direct message to a user in both mobile apps. You will notice the slack experience is kind of heavy and takes time to send the message.

Solution:

Right from searching a contact and sending a DM instantly is the core task for the both the products. This is a step in which slack can come out with seamlessly related to reducing the steps or sending instantly.

Improvement 2: Media Discovery

How many times you would have tried digging in multiple folders and channels when you boss asks for the reference content he had shared a while ago?

The problem is share content discovery

We always tend to share multiple content files to our coworkers like reports, screenshots , references , sales reports in the form of videos , audio, PDF ,excel , links and images.

Slack does not clearly provide the option of searching those content in the mobile app. Even it exits , there has to be better way for the user to search the media and shared content with respect to channels or individual DMs like WhatsApp .

WhatsApp displays multiple tabs by classifying the content type - Media , docs & Links for the user to immediately search and discover the content.

Solution: Slack should come out capability to easily search the media type within channels and individual chat messages so that user can discover it easily. The content type can also mapped with tags so that user can refer back.

Improvement 3: Ability to broadcast and classify groups for Admin

Slack is a pioneer in bringing in channels feature. Channels are used for multiple use cases related to projects, discussions & launches with respect to departments and personas.

There is one use case missing : Ability for an admin to classify groups in single bucket or community so that admins can send a common message to all the groups and track key things.

Sometimes when the organization is growing , there becomes the necessary for creating multiple individual groups and the admins lose out of important information even through one is present in all groups.

WhatsApp solved this by launching communities and ability to segregate groups under community. The admin is able to broadcast a message to the community which gets published to the groups.

Solution: Slack has the option to create sections , but not club existing channels to a community or high level group . Admins should not miss out on key information happening across the groups and also ability to broadcast message across common groups.

Improvement 4: Communicate in person with context

Lot of times , there are certain conversations happening inside the group and you would like to respond in person in context to the discussion and doesnt want want to reply to all members inside the group.

Many a times, its the user need to reply to keep the conversations going.

Threads inside slack are great and specific reply to a subject is important not to divert away from the main cause of discussion. The problem still is prevalent , ie the user needs to reply privately in context to the discussion.

WhatsApp introduced reply privately by copying the specific message to the recipient window by not losing the context.

This is currently missing in slack and i wonder why its missing in the reply context. You can still reply to the user which directly takes the DM approach

Improvement 5: Read receipt acknowledgement

This is the most controversial one and no one would like to have this feature at workplace especially for slack.

The blue tick in WhatsApp often end up in the recipient duty to respond to messages and that's why it came out with options to configure the read receipt

There could be two reasons why read receipt is not being implemented in Slack

1. The recipient gets in to the obligation to respond to messages in some cases, may not be in a position to do so
2. As one has seen the message, the sender expects an instant reply in which it leads to the removal of asynchronous communication.

Solution:

In this case , i would not suggest to borrow the concept of single and double tick from WhatsApp.

The messages could be marked as different labels based on urgency and FYI type . The message audio tone can tweaked a bit to convey the urgency to check the messages.

Improving product sense starts with the fundamental belief that the best solutions can be picked from any industry as long as the user context is fit with the use cases.

Any use cases in which Slack can steal from WhatsApp from improving the product, let me know your thoughts.