The Unexpected Design Challenge Behind Slack's New Threaded Conversations - Fast Company
For years, Slack has known that people wanted discussions to appear in clusters. It just wanted to do it right rather than do it quickly. Slack’s Vancouver office BY HARRY MCCRACKEN At first blush, threaded conversations sound like one of the most thoroughly mundane features a messaging app could introduce. After all, the idea of neatly bundling up a specific message and its replies in one place–rather than weaving them willy-nilly with unrelated items–has been around since the days of dial-up bulletin boards. In one form or another, it’s present in Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and innumerable other places where people communicate with each other. But when Slack‘s users started asking for threaded conversations, the company behind the hit workplace collaboration tool soon concluded that the capability wasn’t something it could whip up in a jiffy. It did, however, begin to noodle around with the idea–and try different approaches. And, eventually, to use a prototype version internally while
Explore this link on the map →