Slack is a Winning Product
When I need to quickly get in touch with someone at work, or ask a question, I use Slack. For a technology worker, whose company uses Slack to communicate, it’s first in mind. Slack is the source of truth for work conversations. Just like I go to Google to search the web, I go to Slack to talk to coworkers.
Slack follows the two rules of designing a Winning Product, they leverage a single primitive and build using well-understood, existing solutions.
Slack’s single primitive
Slack’s single primitive is the message. The message is where you go to ask a question, provide an answer, or send an update to your team. There aren’t different types of messages, the message input always stays the same.
When you want to respond to someone’s message, you... write a message (reply in a thread). Your output is also a message! You can take action on messages: like share outside of Slack, or remind yourself about them. You can also integrate messages with other products: you can create todos or issues in productivity tools that you use.
The message becomes a core part of the value creation experience. Just like in Figma where the file is essential, a worthy strategy is to continuously make the Design File better. With Slack, it would make sense for the message to be easier to create, faster, and more powerful.
Building with existing solutions
On the message, we see existing solutions we’re familiar with. I can attach a photo or record a video. Neither are new to us as technology users, but by including it in the message primitive, I get all the goodies (like sharing, thread replies, etc.) that come with the message.
Slack is internet-famous for emoji reactions. Slack did not invent emojis. They took their message primitive and created a novel way of interacting with the primitive that made the product experience more valuable.
They just used emojis. I love emojis. I know what emojis are. I know what they mean. Now I can use my knowledge of emojis to share my excitement for a message, acknowledge that I read it, or bring other people’s attention to this message.
There are many more existing solutions Slack uses that are familiar: sharing via link, mentions, markdown formatting, and more.
Slack is also smart about how they group the message primitive. Notice there is very little difference between a direct message (1:1), a channel (an open group), and a private group (a select few members). These groupings have permission controls and other features, but at the end of the day, they look and feel familiar: they’re a group of messages.
Slack is a winning product because it is the best possible solution for a web-enabled company to communicate, and becomes first in mind for anyone using it. Slack has a powerful single primitive: the message, that uses existing solutions (like file attachments, emojis) that are familiar and easy to use.