At Guru, our customers live in Slack, so it should come as no surprise that we want to make sure we create a great Guru experience in Slack. When Slack introduced Block Kit earlier this year, we were thrilled to be a launch partner. We used it to make the Guru Help Center in Slackbot a richer, more interactive experience. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve taken advantage of the ease of building in Block Kit with Modals to design a better — and more beautiful — end-to-end Guru Slack experience.
Making Guru’s Slackbot less noisy — and more useful
Until recently, your Guru experience in Slack looked a lot like this:
You were able to see your Card’s title, content, and trust status, but inline images and organizational information (like which Collection it was part of) wouldn’t display. Large blocks of text would take up a lot of room in the Slack window, which made channels look noisier than they really were. With Block Kit, we’ve solved this issue.
In the new experience, unfurled Cards now display the title, collection, and trust status at a glance, while the full content of the Card, including images, can be opened with one click.
The benefits of this design include:
The ability to show images in Cards. Opening Cards in the modal allows us to show images in Slack while maintaining the viewing permissions of images.
A familiar product experience. Because of the way Cards display, the Guru experience in Slack matches the experience of viewing a card in the Guru web app and browser extension.
A better ability to track which users are viewing Cards in Slack. Opening a card in a modal allows Guru to precisely track which users are viewing which cards in Slack, giving you more accurate analytics in Guru.
A significant reduction in the noisiness of Guru in Slack channels. Say goodbye to that large blob of text in the middle of the window; now users get the information they need (title, collection, tags, etc) without crowding the channel.
Find out why Slack uses Guru.
Introducing new search functionality
We didn’t just use Block Kit to redesign the Card viewing experience. The Card posting experience also got an upgrade. There are three ways to search for Guru cards within Slack:
Using the Slash command (/guru)
Using the “Answer with Card” Slack Action
Opening a Direct Message to the Guru bot
Block Kit with Modals has given us the ability to take all of these search paths and unify the user experience. Now, both Slash-command and Slack Action-based searches will open the search results in a modal, while a Direct Message will display the same modal information directly in the DM window.
We’ve found that putting the search results in a modal also helps reduce the in-channel noise, and brings the search results into focus for the user. This is especially helpful when using Slack Actions, as it can now be performed on a message deep in the channel history without forcing the user to scroll down to the result information.
Thanks to Block Kit, we’ve also been able to introduce a highly requested search feature in Slack: users are now able to filter search results based on more than just the search phrase. You can now adjust search terms and filter the results by Collections and Tags:
We’re excited to see how Slack continues to innovate the team communication experience, and we’ll be right beside them, making sure that the knowledge you need can find you where you work.
At Guru, our customers live in Slack, so it should come as no surprise that we want to make sure we create a great Guru experience in Slack. When Slack introduced Block Kit earlier this year, we were thrilled to be a launch partner. We used it to make the Guru Help Center in Slackbot a richer, more interactive experience. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve taken advantage of the ease of building in Block Kit with Modals to design a better — and more beautiful — end-to-end Guru Slack experience.
Making Guru’s Slackbot less noisy — and more useful
Until recently, your Guru experience in Slack looked a lot like this:
You were able to see your Card’s title, content, and trust status, but inline images and organizational information (like which Collection it was part of) wouldn’t display. Large blocks of text would take up a lot of room in the Slack window, which made channels look noisier than they really were. With Block Kit, we’ve solved this issue.
In the new experience, unfurled Cards now display the title, collection, and trust status at a glance, while the full content of the Card, including images, can be opened with one click.
The benefits of this design include:
The ability to show images in Cards. Opening Cards in the modal allows us to show images in Slack while maintaining the viewing permissions of images.
A familiar product experience. Because of the way Cards display, the Guru experience in Slack matches the experience of viewing a card in the Guru web app and browser extension.
A better ability to track which users are viewing Cards in Slack. Opening a card in a modal allows Guru to precisely track which users are viewing which cards in Slack, giving you more accurate analytics in Guru.
A significant reduction in the noisiness of Guru in Slack channels. Say goodbye to that large blob of text in the middle of the window; now users get the information they need (title, collection, tags, etc) without crowding the channel.
Find out why Slack uses Guru.
Introducing new search functionality
We didn’t just use Block Kit to redesign the Card viewing experience. The Card posting experience also got an upgrade. There are three ways to search for Guru cards within Slack:
Using the Slash command (/guru)
Using the “Answer with Card” Slack Action
Opening a Direct Message to the Guru bot
Block Kit with Modals has given us the ability to take all of these search paths and unify the user experience. Now, both Slash-command and Slack Action-based searches will open the search results in a modal, while a Direct Message will display the same modal information directly in the DM window.
We’ve found that putting the search results in a modal also helps reduce the in-channel noise, and brings the search results into focus for the user. This is especially helpful when using Slack Actions, as it can now be performed on a message deep in the channel history without forcing the user to scroll down to the result information.
Thanks to Block Kit, we’ve also been able to introduce a highly requested search feature in Slack: users are now able to filter search results based on more than just the search phrase. You can now adjust search terms and filter the results by Collections and Tags:
We’re excited to see how Slack continues to innovate the team communication experience, and we’ll be right beside them, making sure that the knowledge you need can find you where you work.
