The brainchild of Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Slack has risen to become the world’s most popular corporate chat client.
In a crowded space, and seemingly saturated market, Slack instantly became a cult hit by challenging the norm. It's beloved for its gorgeous, playful interface and tons of delightful little interactions throughout the app.
We were there from the start. Understanding the value of design, Stewart and his team came to us when Slack was a rough unstyled prototype and asked us to help make it great.
We worked with him to build the app from the ground up—along with the brand, the mobile app, the marketing site—the works.
At a time when business applications were dull and boring, and workplace communication depended almost entirely on email, our aim was to make Slack stand out from the crowd. Our guiding question—why not?
Slack bucks the enterprise app trend of dull language that leaves users lost and unengaged.
Instead, each piece of copy is seen as an opportunity to be playful. From the loading screen to the error message, Slackbot acts as your wise-cracking robot sidekick, providing injections of fun on those boring days.
We strived to fill the product with delightful, and unexpected, interactions—the logo animates in a burst of color as it loads, the modals slide down from the top of the screen, gifs appear at random like Russian roulette.
Throughout the entire app, everything seems to playfully jump around and pop off the screen. Each of these moments is designed not only to help the user understand what's going on, but put a little smile on their face.
When Slack launched in 2013, its unique design and playful features seemed to instantly steal the hearts of millions. Its widespread adoption has made it the fastest growing business application of all time.
Today, Slack is publicly traded and has a valuation near $25 billion.