Slack’s Triggers Are a Cue to Take Action
Users keep Slack open all day on a variety of devices and receiving a notification prompts opening Slack. Pritchard says, “It becomes a way of saying to your co-workers ‘I am at work and I am available.’”
The company has focused on making Slack easy to use when on the go. Slack user James Gill said, “I personally have found myself catching-up on things much more from my phone now than I ever did before.”
Though Slack clearly utilizes effective triggers in its own product to get users checking the app, don’t all those notifications overwhelm people? How can a company with the slogan, “Be less busy,” avoid perpetuating mindless multi-tasking with each new ping?
The key appears to be how Slack helps workers avoid other distractions.
Teams often use multiple tools in their work — Asana for project management, Github for version control, and Dropbox for files — all the while receiving notifications and reminders from those tools via email. However, all these messages and notifications can clutter a worker’s day, especially when they are received and processed in the same email inbox they use for all their other messages.
Combined with all the interoffice chatter we send back and forth through email and we soon find ourselves in the email deluge we swim in today.
Slack provides shelter from the storm.
By offering a centralized hub for team communications, including the information streaming in from work-related tools, professionals reduce distraction from the irrelevant messages bombarding their email inbox throughout the day. “Anything in Slack is internal,” says Slack user Jamie Lawrence. “Anything in my inbox should be external.”
Slack acts as a protective shield focusing user’s attention on what’s important by reducing irrelevant triggers.