Tag: ux

Slack: What Great Execution Looks Like

For those of you who know me, I’m a huge fan and user of Slack; both the company and the product. Here are some things that Slack has done and continues to do right:

  1. Social Media: They know how to use social media to connect with their users. They respond to every tweet and do their best to help you. If they can’t help you they connect you with somebody within Slack that can help.
  2. Integrations: Out of the box they offer an extensive list of products and services that they integrate with. This is a HUGE one as I use many of these integrations when I setup my new Slack groups. Oh, and did I mention that they work and they work as you would expect to work.
  3. API: The Slack API is very well thought out and documented. I have developed several bots, some simple and some quite complex using their API. There isn’t much you can’t do.
  4. Just enough features: Slack doesn’t try to be all things to all users. I’m hoping that Slack continues to carefully craft the user experience in the same way that they already have.
  5. Mobile, Web and Desktop: Right out of the gate they offered first class desktop, the web and mobile clients. All that worked very well.
  6. App Store/App Directory: Need I say more.

It’s these six things that make Slack a company and product to admire. There are so many companies trying to take on Slack and there are some other products that do what Slack does. Bottom line is that they are not Slack the company and Slack the product.

I expect in the forthcoming weeks, to see other companies announcing products to challenge Slack’s dominance and I’m looking forward to seeing how those new products align with the six things I outlined above, if at all.

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Something all Application Developers Should Consider Reading

Front-End Architecture: A Modern Blueprint for Scalable and Sustainable Design Systems by Micah Godbolt

With CSS preprocessing, icon fonts, grunt workflows, pattern libraries and JavaScript MVCs, the front-end workspace is anything but simple. This complex stack of tools can no longer be pieced together on a whim. Front-End Architecture needs and deserves the same attention given to content strategy, data migration, or server configuration. This practical book helps you explore all of these important decisions—right at the stage of the project where they need to be decided.

You’ll learn about the rewards gained from early, informed decisions, and the risks incurred if choices are made too hastily, or too late. Whether you are a front-end developer or a project owner, this book will inspire you.

Micah is a friend of mine who is the author of this fabulous book on front-end architecture. You can pre-order the book on Amazon or you can purchase the early release draft from O’Rielly. I highly recommend this book. I personally have learned a tremendous amount from it.

You can also find Micah on the Sass Bites podcast.