Another thing in Slack that has annoyingly changed (without an option to toggle off) is: its "Drafts" feature - where leaving a channel with an unfinished message means that the channel itself gets moved to the top of the left sidebar. This completely breaks my flow, because 1.) you can no longer use up/down hotkeys to reliably go between specific channels, and 2.) I frequently have to do a double take and ask, "where did that channel go?" - especially if you Star specific DM channels, because those go under the drafts section but above the rest of the channels, meaning the Drafts section is out of view most of the time.
Long ago I created a Chrome extension that reordered things nicely, but their CSS changes frequently which made it a maintenance hassle, and I read on HN another dev saying doing so is against their terms of service anyway. Not a fan of that anti-tinkering attitude.
SLACK: don't make dramatic changes to a user's workflow without giving a simple toggle to preserve old behavior.
I get it, most users probably love this feature. My wife does, for example, and she works at a big organization, which has different needs from my workplace. But even if dramatic changes to product are approved of by 75% of users, every time you do so, you create whiplash for the other 25%, and prevent many from ever loving your product. Rinse and repeat that whiplash too many times and product design rants on HN with 600+ upvotes will be a regular occurrence...
I use Slack very often, and I also get annoyed that Drafts features often tugs a frequently-used channel to a different spot in sidebar. "Where did that channel go?"
I am so glad you said this! It drives me mad. I think of the lists of users/channels in slack alphabetically so even now that I'm aware of the "drafts" change I still go through this shock every.damn.time.
Long ago I created a Chrome extension that reordered things nicely, but their CSS changes frequently which made it a maintenance hassle, and I read on HN another dev saying doing so is against their terms of service anyway. Not a fan of that anti-tinkering attitude.
SLACK: don't make dramatic changes to a user's workflow without giving a simple toggle to preserve old behavior.
I get it, most users probably love this feature. My wife does, for example, and she works at a big organization, which has different needs from my workplace. But even if dramatic changes to product are approved of by 75% of users, every time you do so, you create whiplash for the other 25%, and prevent many from ever loving your product. Rinse and repeat that whiplash too many times and product design rants on HN with 600+ upvotes will be a regular occurrence...