In a single day on the job, members of the workforce use an array of digital tools to juggle their responsibilities. In fact, new research from Harvard Business Review states that, in one work day, the average employee toggles between different apps and websites nearly 1,200 times. This means an extra four hours of weekly activity simply switching from one context to another. Over the course of a year, that accumulates to five working weeks.
Luckily, there are solutions. Developing a custom Slack app allows you to integrate the many tools you use every day to serve your team’s unique objectives. Whether building a departmental workflow or automating org-wide processes, a bespoke app to solve a recurring problem or a public one that any user can download through the App Directory, Slack helps companies streamline work.
There is no “one size fits all” strategy to building the perfect custom Slack app. Every company, team, and employee has different needs. There are, however, three fundamental pieces of advice you can apply to all.
Tip #1: Put yourself in the user’s shoes
To craft an app that improves employees’ 9 to 5, consider the ways in which they work, then imagine the most intuitive pathway for them to complete a specific task.
How do they make first contact? What kinds of shortcuts will simplify their workflow?
Next, imagine the optimal sequence of steps they would encounter in order to reach a conclusion. Apply this same process to different user personas. This straightforward, humanistic philosophy showcases one of my favorite rules of thumb for building user-centric experiences: “don’t make me think.”
A recent example of “putting yourself in the user’s shoes” comes from Slack’s platform team, which recently launched a simple yet powerful update: every workflow now comes with a unique link, making it easy for users to share workflows across Slack.
The inspiration for this functionality comes from the instinctual behavior of copying and pasting links, which users already perform hundreds of times a day to share websites, messages, and files. Find ways to infuse “don’t make me think” into your apps, too!
Tip #2: Focus on the platform’s developer tools
Creating a custom Slack app should be a pleasant and intuitive experience, which is why we’ve re-engineered the platform to make building and launching custom apps (both big and small) easier than ever. These updates help you simplify the tedious aspects of development like setup and infrastructure management, giving you extra time and energy to focus on functionality.
A common challenge that enterprise customers face is having dozens of Slack apps for Jira that solve for the same ticketing use case. As a solution, we’ve introduced a new modular architecture grounded in “building blocks.”
This function establishes a foundation for reusability, allowing users to avoid scenarios of redundant development and tech debt. Additionally, our faster, more intuitive developer experience includes new and improved tools like the Slack CLI and SDK that make it simpler to build, run, and deploy code in Slack’s secure, compliant environment. Those seeking to use their own existing Slack infrastructure and on-premise friendly features can also use Slack’s Bolt framework for JavaScript.
Whether you go serverless with Slack or keep your code in house, always make sure you’re using the proper tools for your organization’s needs.
Tip #3: Get inspired by a vast library of apps
Every week, more than a million Slack developers use the platform to build custom apps that help their teams do their best work. Just like the organizations that build them, these apps are completely unique.
They allow you to quickly automate infinite tasks, from delivering interactive experiences (using slash commands) to pulling external data (with webhooks) to deploying conversational bots (leveraging our Events API). We’ve seen customers across retail, finance, and telecomm, including Target, Starling Bank, and Vodafone, benefit from connecting their teams and tools on Slack to make progress at work.
The range of possibilities can be overwhelming once you decide to create a Slack app, but the barriers are easier to break than you might think. To start, get acquainted with the capabilities of existing Slack apps, how you can interact with users, and the available developer tools to make the process easier and more productive.
To learn more, visit api.slack.com.
This post is a sponsored collaboration between Slack and G/O Media Studios.
