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Don't share documentation 1-1: Set your Slack retention ridiculously low to force people to put information in documentation if they wish it to be retained at a

Don't share documentation 1-1: Set your Slack retention ridiculously low to force people to put information in documentation if they wish it to be retained at all. This is one of those instances of pure non-sense that I hope will drive rich discussion.

CathedralBorrow 6y ago
As with every other attempt to "force people" to do something via UX limitations, I think that's doomed to fail. The whole notion of forcing users to change their behavior by placing obstacles in their way is futile in my experience. It's a grave misunderstanding of who users are and how to design for them. Forcing users to do what you want them to is how you get desire paths [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
polote 6y ago
The issue with 1-1 communication is not the retention part but the exclusive and not complete part. If you have no retention but allow 1-1, the same person will just keep asking the same question over and over. Which will make everything worst. Also as the sibling comment is saying, you won't change the culture of an organization only by an UX change or a software change, that can help, but that won't be enough
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Set your Slack retention ridiculously low to force people to put information in documentation if they wish it to be retained at all. I worked at a company that tried something similar. The result was that individual teams set up their own off-the-record private Slack workspaces or Discords so they could regain some control over their conversation history. Obviously not great from a company information security perspective, but many managers looked the other way because they just wanted to get their work done without worrying about conversation history arbitrarily disappearing. The idea that you can force people to produce better documentation by making their lives more difficult never really works out.
harrisonjohnson 6y ago
When you say don’t share documentation 1:1, do you mean always share broadly? Or do you mean always write it down?

CathedralBorrow 6y ago

As with every other attempt to "force people" to do something via UX limitations, I think that's doomed to fail. The whole notion of forcing users to change their behavior by placing obstacles in their way is futile in my experience. It's a grave misunderstanding of who users are and how to design for them. Forcing users to do what you want them to is how you get desire paths [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path

polote 6y ago

The issue with 1-1 communication is not the retention part but the exclusive and not complete part. If you have no retention but allow 1-1, the same person will just keep asking the same question over and over. Which will make everything worst. Also as the sibling comment is saying, you won't change the culture of an organization only by an UX change or a software change, that can help, but that won't be enough

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Set your Slack retention ridiculously low to force people to put information in documentation if they wish it to be retained at all. I worked at a company that tried something similar. The result was that individual teams set up their own off-the-record private Slack workspaces or Discords so they could regain some control over their conversation history. Obviously not great from a company information security perspective, but many managers looked the other way because they just wanted to get their work done without worrying about conversation history arbitrarily disappearing. The idea that you can force people to produce better documentation by making their lives more difficult never really works out.

harrisonjohnson 6y ago

When you say don’t share documentation 1:1, do you mean always share broadly? Or do you mean always write it down?