Reminders in Slack

Making it easier to view, manage, and understand reminders in Slack

'Reminders' tab in the side panel showing all reminders, and attached messages

'Reminders' tab in the side panel showing all reminders, and attached messages

'Reminders' tab in the side panel showing all reminders, and attached messages

Opportunity

If you have used Slack, you likely know about the /remind shorthand used to setup reminders. To view all reminders, back in 2020, you had to interact with Slackbot in chat and see your reminders as inline links.

During my internship, I was tasked with designing a centralized view for reminders in Slack, where users can view and manage all their reminders and tasks.

Initial research with the PMs and engineers who build the current implement of reminders surfaced some common pain points they had heard from users and colleagues at Slack.

Here's a summary of key pain points that I found:

Current features weren't discoverable

Several usability issues in the current chat-based management

Some popular user-requested actions were not supported in current UI

Current features weren't discoverable

Several usability issues in the current chat-based management

Some popular user-requested actions were not supported in current UI

Current features weren't discoverable

Several usability issues in the current chat-based management

Some popular user-requested actions were not supported in current UI

Iteratively, I designed a feature proposal for Reminders as its own page in the side panel:

[✔] Get inline feedback when they create a reminder from a message
[✔] All reminders, including the message it was created for, can be viewed in a single page
[✔] Users could edit, modify, or dismiss all upcoming reminders from this page

While this feature was not shipped during my summer internship in 2020, it was recently launched as the 'Later' tab, influenced by my work as an intern.

Solution

Earlier iterations included a modal-based UX for creating and viewing reminders

Early explorations for inline feedback in the message confirming a reminder

This final proposal, of reminders as its own page, was shipped in 2023 as the 'Later' sidebar tab

Earlier iterations included a modal-based UX for creating and viewing reminders

Early explorations for inline feedback in the message confirming a reminder

This final proposal, of reminders as its own page, was shipped in 2023 as the 'Later' sidebar tab

Earlier iterations included a modal-based UX for creating and viewing reminders

Early explorations for inline feedback in the message confirming a reminder

This final proposal, of reminders as its own page, was shipped in 2023 as the 'Later' sidebar tab

For a deeper dive into the proposed improvements, check out this FigJam board: Overview of Reminders in Slack ↗

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