Building great user experiences on Slack

Hello, fellow developer! We're glad you're here and interested in building great experiences for users on Slack's platform. We've compiled some best practices that dive into the finer details of building a good app.

From understanding your audience to successfully onboarding users, there's one underlying principle we recommend keeping in mind at all times:

Build with empathy for the end user. We all want to make our users' work lives more pleasant and productive. Your app is more likely to improve people's lives if you take into account the different ways that people work. Here are the best practices we recommend when developing your app:

While some social groups use Slack to communicate, most people come to Slack to get work done. How they work may be a bit different:

They may be from a big enterprise group or a small company
They may be a part of different business units, like Engineering or HR
They may have different preferences or requirements when it comes to who can install an app

So, start with the question: how will your app help all these people get work done?

Lessons learned building Slackbot

Slackbot's approach and purpose has not always been clear nor its communication consistent and effective.

As time passed and Slackbot became more well-defined, we developed our own set of guidelines for using Slackbot in an empathetic way:

See the whole flowchart

Chart your own course

Your app has its own special purpose and personality.

Map out your bot's logic and conscience while working through these best practices to help develop consistent and user-friendly experiences that feel at home on Slack.

Understand your audience

Building great user experiences on Slack

Lessons learned building Slackbot

Chart your own course

Related documentation