Slack introduces threads to channels after two years of perfecting the feature

Slack has introduced a threading feature for channels. The new feature is expected to roll out over the course of the next few weeks on the mobile and desktop versions of the service. The thread feature took over two years to develop and perfect, with the first prototype being tested way back in 2015. Slack first introduced threading in channels to the Slack team itself, as an effort to declutter the channels, but things did not turn out as expected.

Conversations in a channel can branch off into various topics. Threads can help track the various branches in the conversation better, but a problem was that a channel would grow more chaotic and noisy. This is because a few members of a team would be typing away replies to a thread, while others were engaging in a conversation in the channel itself. It was not immediately clear in a team environment, when exactly threads were supposed to be used, and when to use the channel.

Threads became so distracting that Slack turned the feature off, but employees had already adopted to it. An interesting thing Slack noticed was that how different types of professionals would use threads. Engineers, PR professionals, customer care executives would group the discussions around bug reports, press coverages of particular announcements and queries by customers. Senior management would respond to the questions when they found the time to catch up.

Through the course of internal use, the Slack team identified situations where threads tended to help the most. Threads help open up discussions within the channel that are not relevant to everyone in the channel. Threads are also useful for when a team member wants to respond to a post that was made much earlier, such as updates to important topics earlier in the channel. Threads are also useful for grouping comments around channels that frequently have minor requests.

The result of these insights is the version of the threading feature that is now being introduced publicly on Slack. Users must first post a message on the channel in Slack. Hovering over the message allows any team member to branch the conversation off into a thread. The thread view opens in a panel on the right side of the screen. The threaded articles are hidden from view by default, but a label appears showing the number of responses to a thread.

Users are not spammed with notifications whenever someone branches off into a conversation on a channel that may not be relevant to everyone. However, users can still be up to date with all the action in the All Threads view on the sidebar. Including an @ followed by the handle to a response allows users to tag a particular team member, which shows up as a notification for that user. Although the threads are hidden from view by default, any team member can search through the threads, and yes, the threads are archived.

The All Threads views allows team members to keep track of multiple threads across various channels from one place. Whenever anyone responds to a particular question in a thread, the All Threads view will light up and appear in bold. The All Threads view is positioned right on top of the list of channels. When replying to a thread, there is an option to post the question and the response back to the original channel, if the particular interaction is pertinent to everyone participating in the channel.

The thread feature is designed in such a way that users are not disturbed by conversations that branch off, but can still jump in and track them when necessary. Decluttering the conversation, at the same time making the conversation busier and grouping comments around queries was a knot that Slack managed to unravel. Slack is actively seeking feedback on the new feature, and will continue to improve threads in the future.