Slack is hot for some reason that I have not figured yet. Anyway, I am sharing the messages that Slack showed me. I think that they are broken. I have seen similar messages from all kinds of websites and applications. I am yet to see one that does the job of communicating the essence of the matter correctly.
Today, after playing for some time with Slack, I noticed a message at the top. On a blue background, it said
Slack needs your permission to enable desktop notifications.
The words “enable desktop notifications” are underlined, which makes me think that they represent a link. However, I have no idea what that link will do. I mean, I do not know what it means to “enable desktop notifications”. There is also an X button on the right, so I clicked that. The message immediately changed.
The background became green and the text now read:
We strongly recommend enabling desktop notifications if you’ll be using Slack on this computer.
[link Enable notifications] [big dot] [link Ask me next time] [big dot] [link Never ask again on this computer]
There is no X button on the right, so I do not know what to click.
Problems
- The people who wrote the messages assume that I, the user, will know what desktop notifications are. Wrong. They should have provided an explanation.
I did some search and found that, according to Wikipedia, desktop notifications are a synonym of pop-up notifications, which happen to be some graphical control element, whose purpose seems to be to communicate some events to users without forcing users to react to these notifications. I am using Windows. I still do not know what these desktop notifications are. I assume that they are not enabled on my computer. - There is something slightly scary in the way the message sounds. It makes me think that if notifications are not enabled, I will not be able to use Slack. The problem is that there is no explanation of why I might need notifications.
- The two messages want me to make a decision but do not provide sufficiently clear options:
- Enable notifications – what will happen if I do? Not clear.
- Ask me next time – when is the next time? Not clear.
- Never ask again on this computer – what if I need these notifications for something important? Not clear whether, where, and how I can change my decision if I need to.
Fix
Design for humans: Provide a link to an explanation of what desktop notifications are and how Slack is using them. In the messages, be more specific. If there is a setting in Windows where I can see what can send me notifications, tell me how to get there.
I searched the Slack documentation for “desktop notifications“. There is a topic that attempts to explain desktop notifications: Guide to Slack notifications. There is also a topic that explains how to change desktop notification settings: Put your notifications to work. That means that there are people at Slack who have the necessary knowledge. Unfortunately, the people who wrote the messages probably did not work with them.
19 April 2019 | Slack
on messages 