Slack App (Integration)

Jira for Slack

Overview

Defining and improving how Atlassian products operate within the constraints of the communication tool Slack.

Responsibilities

Research, facilitate workshops, sketch,
wireframe, prototype and design.

Year • Location

2018 – 2019 • Austin, TX

👋 About

Atlassian Corporation is an enterprise software company that is best known for its product Jira, a project tracking tool used by millions around the world. Slack, has become one of the most popular chat apps in today’s technological world.

🤔 The Problem

The stakes were high as issues with installation, setup and managing the app were affecting the huge intersection between Jira and Slack customers. These issues affected several companies such as Airbnb, Target, NASA, Netflix, Nintendo, while the current version of the app was in production.

🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️ The Team

A well-versed team, consisting of professional and experienced product managers, developers, and a content writer with all design efforts on the integration led by myself.

Process

Following the Design Thinking approach we developed a plan which is divided into three stages:

Understand

Design

Evolve

Understand

Understand the product, clarify initial assumptions, uncover user pain-points, and insights.

📚 Research

Over the first several months I focused on analyzing the current state of the app, reviewing competitors and building empathy for the users.

Both qualitative and quantitative research helped me in my pursuit of the truth. Reading through the direct customer feedback, doing user interviews and interpreting statistical data was an eye-opener. Quotes from customers can be seen on the slider.

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📚 Research

Over the first several months I focused on analyzing the current state of the app, reviewing competitors and building empathy for the users.

Both qualitative and quantitative research helped me in my pursuit of the truth. Reading through the direct customer feedback, doing user interviews and interpreting statistical data was an eye-opener. Quotes from customers can be seen on the slider.

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🧠 Interpret

The handful of user insights were a great basis, however, we needed to dig deeper. Our team got together for a 3-day workshop in order to develop our process and go over the results.

First, we summarized the gathered knowledge about the users into personas, after which we traversed through the user’s journey, and identified pain-points at each stage. For example:

  • Customers not knowing their Jira instance URL
  • Established connection redirects to a wrong channel
  • App configuration is misleading and others.
workshop1
workshop2
shop

🧠 Interpret

The handful of user insights were a great basis, however, we needed to dig deeper. Our team got together for a 3-day workshop in order to develop our process and go over the results.

First, we summarized the gathered knowledge about the users into personas, after which we traversed through the user’s journey, and identified pain-points at each stage. For example:

  • Customers not knowing their Jira instance URL
  • Established connection redirects to a wrong channel
  • App configuration is misleading and others.

📌 Problem framing

We condensed the pain-points into 3 main categories

I. Installation

The statistics we set up showed that the completion rate on installation was less than 40%.

II. Signal to Noise Ratio

A big chunk of the customers uninstalled the app, because of the overwhelming notifications.

III. Feature Parity

Important Jira capabilities weren’t available in the Slack app, so we focused on introducing them.

Design

Visualize the solutions in a way that they can be validated as well as refined early and often.

📘  Product Principles

Establishing fundamental pieces of advice to follow throughout the process of the app design.

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🖌 Prototype & Design

Bringing positive solutions to life while consistently validating them with the development team.

I. Install

3-click Install

In reconsidering the user journey, we came up with a concept about logging the user first. This gave us the knowledge to transform the Jira-Slack connector into a simple in-chat form.

49%

Increase in Jira project subscriptions to a Slack channel. (Statistics)

I. Install

3-click install

In reconsidering the user journey, we came up with a concept about logging the user first. This gave us the knowledge to transform the Jira-Slack connector into a simple in-chat form.

49%

Increase in Jira project subscriptions to a Slack channel. (Statistics)

II. Signal to Noise Ratio

Smart Defaults &
Custom Configuration

Our team tracked and analyzed the most common notifications people use and set them as a default configuration. We also enhanced the notification configuration screen for Slack with an option to add custom webhooks and switch to Jira Query Language. (How we did it)

40%

Decrease of negative feedback regarding noise. 

II. Signal to Noise Ratio

Smart Defaults &
Custom Configuration

Our team tracked and analyzed the most common notifications people use and set them as a default configuration. We also enhanced the notification configuration screen for Slack with an option to add custom webhooks and switch to Jira Query Language. (How we did it)

40%

Decrease of negative feedback regarding noise. 

III. Feature Parity

Introduced Jira Features

Based on our initial research and triaged feedback we introduced a few of the most needed features like the ability to create, watch, transition and comment on a Jira issue.

70%

Success rate on the adoption of the “Create Issue” feature. (Statistics)

III. Feature Parity

Introduced Jira Features

Based on our initial research and triaged feedback we introduced a few of the most needed features like the ability to create, watch, transition and comment on a Jira issue.

70%

Success rate on the adoption of the “Create Issue” feature. (Statistics)

Other screens

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Other screens

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Evolve

Design never ends, but we need to continue our pursuit of perfection by improving the product on a consistent basis.

👫 Behavioral Analytics Events

By tracking the right user flows and metrics we identified how we can evolve the product, so it stands the test of time.

Data bath meetings are our teams’ bi-weekly way of analyzing drop-offs together, triaging user feedback, and brainstorm on potential improvements.

👥 User Testing

Usertesting.com helped us validate most of our solutions by doing test sessions based on pre-defined scenarios.

Dogfooding and blitz testing were other techniques we applied throughout the process to make sure we’re shipping a quality product.

✌️ Conclusion

It was challenging to understand what caused user issues and to reproduce features from one system into another. With a lot of trials and errors, we did it successfully.
The most important lesson we learned is that setting metrics for a project is a crucial part of the process and a great way to measure progress.

380%

Monthly Active Users growth for less than 6 months. (Statistics)

🎖 Testimonial

“Miro is a fantastic designer who exudes all of the right traits. He was a beloved member of our team at Atlassian as both a designer and a friend. I would jump for the opportunity to work with Miro again and highly recommend anyone else looking for a seasoned designer to do the same.”

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Trevor Thompson
Product Manager @ Atlassian

References

Download as PDF  •  App on Slack marketplace •  Atlassian + Slack partnershipMedium Article

Crafted with ❣️ in Austin, TX.