Slack’s redesigned mobile apps are more intuitive, less likely to make your bang head against wall

Slack is a great app — I use it every day as my primary means of business communication, and I love its design, responsiveness, and robust multi-platform support.

Its mobile apps can also be maddeningly frustrating, especially when you’re looking to do something simple, like compose a new direct message, and you can’t find a way to do it. 

With a new redesign that started rolling out Wednesday, Slack’s apps for iOS and Android should be a lot more intuitive. 

The biggest change is the tab bar, which shows up at the bottom of the app and makes it easy to switch from the Home screen to direct messages to mentions etc. There’s also a dedicated button for composing new message in the bottom right corner of the app. 

For an idea of how much of a difference this makes, I offer this quote from Slack’s release notes for the latest version of the app: “It seemed bizarrely hard to create a new message in a channel or DM without finding that precise location first. With an application of logic, software engineering, and a new “Compose” button in the bottom right corner, this has been rectified.” Yes.

DMs and mentions were similarly tough to find before, so dedicated buttons in the tab bar should change this. 

Other changes include making it easier to update your status, new swipe gestures, as well as shortcuts, which offer a fast way to reach a certain feature regardless of what you’re currently doing in the app.  

The design is pretty much unified across iOS and Android, which is a nice touch for us poor souls who often use both platforms. 

Slack says it will continue to update the app with “more improvements” in the future, and urges users to actually use the “Send feedback” button which can be found under Preferences.