Slack Onboarding Case Study
Group project | Website | UX Design lead
Summary
The UX Mentorship group started fall of 2020. We function as a support network for UX researchers, designers, and inquirers. I worked with the leadership team to choose a group project to gain experience.
Learning to flex with schedule changes during this project bolstered my confidence in both my leadership abilities and UX design skills.
Problem: The current Slack onboarding for new admins is confusing and hard to use
Solution: We created teams to research and redesign the onboarding for new admins in Slack
Goal: Streamline the onboarding process for new Slack admins, while learning to work in a team. Final prototype is clear, intuitive, and beautiful.
Timeline: December 2020 - March 2021
My role: UX Design lead
What I learned:
Good PMs are worth their weight in gold
Leadership requires clear communication and flexibility
Things will go wrong, so plan for change and adjustable deadlines if possible
Team:
Mentor/Project Manager: Jonathan Brink
Assistant Project Managers: Kyle Lacek, Talia Buckbinder
UX Research Leads: Ama Bonsu and Lauren Groombridge
UX Research Team: Camren Schuter, Dana Nichols, Eve Adams
UX Design Team: Judy Li
HMW: How can we help leaders who have never used Slack easily set up a workspace for their team?
Project strategy
Project brainstorming
As one of the UX Mentorship leaders, I joined a brainstorming session to choose a group focus. We created a Miro board for the group to add painpoints. I sorted them into different categories and the leadership team used dot voting to select the top five.
What I learned: Use deadlines to help group projects stay on track, and settle big decisions in a smaller group.
UX Design lead
With limited people available from the leadership team, I was able to jump into the role of UX lead. It’s my first group project for UX, but I knew my communication and organizing skills were up for the challenge.
Design team: 7-8 people
Initial timeline: Finalize the project plan end of December, complete it by end of January 2021
Actual research handoff: January 26
I kept in touch with the project managers to understand where the project was and update my team.
Research
Credit Talia Buckbinder, Assistant PM
PRD and research handoff
The Project Managers worked with the Research team to audit the current Slack system, survey business leaders and general slack users, create a persona, and create user flows. The main pain points they found include:
The current onboarding leads to cognitive overload when the main Slack page opens
During onboarding, the difference between a channel and workspace is not well defined
It’s difficult to add team member emails all at once
The Slack search function is hidden at the top
I discussed our design direction with the project managers (PMs) and evaluated the persona
We revised our timeline to include mid and high fidelity designs to be finished the end of February.
What I learned: When timelines adjust, it’s hard to keep different teams on the same page. Check in and keep communication as open as possible.
Design Process
Low fidelity
Based on my conversation with the project managers and review of the research, I created low-fidelity versions of our new Slack onboarding system. I presented the research findings and these low-fidelity slides to the project managers and the design team. From the meeting feedback, I revised the file and sent it to my design team to copy for mid-fidelity iterations.
The requirement to be part of the design team was to attend or review the kickoff meeting and create mid-fidelity designs for the following meeting.
What I learned: Sometimes you don’t get the feedback you need before a meeting. Learn to take criticism and roll with it to reach the final goal.
Leader lessons
By the following week, it was clear we had a problem. My team was down to one other designer and myself. The other 6-7 team members were unable to stay on the project.
I talked with the PMs and we pushed out the deadline to complete mid-fidelity designs by a week, and I reached out to more designers.
No other designers joined the team, so my teammate and I decided to tackle the project by ourselves
Mid fidelity
Mid fidelity prototype
Each person created their own mid-fidelity design and presented them at our second meeting.
This is my concept for a page to show new admins where they can find channels in the Slack page after they have named their first one.
Feedback: switching back and forth between windows may be confusing, so streamline the interface.
Project Manager notes
The PMs compiled the mid-fidelity designs into a single direction to develop into high-fidelity prototypes.
My design team challenged some of the design choices in this deliverable, like using an arrow to highlight the focus area in the left sidebar. This style didn’t work well across all the different pages, so we changed text opacity in the sidebar sections to highlight the active area.
We reviewed those decisions with the PMs during our first high-fidelity meeting, and aimed for the most streamlined, elegant design.
Brand guidelines
A design system is very important to coordinate multiple designers on a single project - we edited and added to these screens as we finalized designs.
My team used the Slack media kit to select appropriate colors, styles, and fonts for our project.
My teammate suggested the 8 pt grid system to help everything stay responsive. We designed for desktop, but assumed mobile devices would also be used.
High fidelity: Mock-ups, prototype, testing
Technical difficulties…
Ice storms don’t get along with power lines. I was out of power for nine days and had to borrow internet a few hours at a time. We pushed out the final design a few extra days.
In the end, this helped me think on my feet in unusual circumstances.
High fidelity V1
I presented the high fidelity prototype to the PMs and some of the research team. We got a lot of great feedback.
Our business mentor/ Project manager pointed out areas to balance user and business needs. Keep it simple, intuitive, elegant.
The research team verified that the designs were meeting user needs
High fidelity V2
My team adjusted our designs and the research team did one more round of testing.
Improvements include:
Defined sidebar highlights what you’re working on for recognition later in the process
More whitespace decreases cognitive overload
Button style clarifies options while remaining streamlined
Link to “create another channel” streamlines the process for users who need to start several conversations
Final high fidelity prototype
Key pain points improved
Multiple sign-up options
Easier email verification
Contextualized onboarding in the Slack platform
Easier to add a large group to a channel
Direct people to more help as needed
Next steps & final thoughts
Next steps
The research team conducted another round of testing. Key feedback:
Improve visual feedback when invites are sent — either successfully or unsuccessfully
Clarify options and actions in the notifications section
I would go back to the designs and iterate on this testing. Then I would meet with the project managers and decide if it was ready to ship.
Final thoughts
A few months down the road, I realized smaller design teams make more sense than large ones. Learning to flex with schedule changes during this project bolstered my confidence in both my leadership abilities and UX design skills.
Keep the research team in the loop - they are project barometers
Good leaders are learners - stay humble and use research to back up final decisions
Label everything and stay organized with notes and follow-ups
In the future I want to learn from more experienced designers how to best lead a group