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What made the learning curve higher for non-technical members on Zulip than it was on Slack? It’s been a few years since I used Zulip, but I don’t feel like it

What made the learning curve higher for non-technical members on Zulip than it was on Slack? It’s been a few years since I used Zulip, but I don’t feel like it had a particularly different level of complexity.

georgyo 4y ago
I think the fact that you must give a thread topic to send a message. It's not particularly difficult concept, but different from every other chat app. And for a large user base being confronted with this demand "when they just want to send a message" is frustrating.
- ctxc 4y ago
  Zoho Cliq solves this by using ML to parse the message and give a suitable name. It's suitable 7/10 times, and the remaining 3 - it either doesn't matter that much or is trivial to rename. Zulip should try that if they haven't already.
  - darkteflon 4y ago
    I hadn’t heard of Cliq. Do you have lots of experience with it? What do you think of it?
    - ctxc 4y ago
      Disclaimer: I work for Zoho, but in a different team. I find that I really like it for work. But for informal interactions (gaming etc) I like Discord better because of the voice channels. In Cliq they're "calls" and feel much more formal.
- darkteflon 4y ago
  Yeah that’s consistent with what we found. The threading model is so powerful, because even large teams that are mainly async can actually find stuff they need, _in context_. That’s really difficult or impossible in something like Slack, Discord, etc, and the value of that can’t really be overstated. On the other hand, you’re asking people to buy into what is essentially a completely different paradigm than what they’re used to. Maybe it’s more like a loosely-structured wiki than a chat app. I really like it, though. I feel like it deserves a lot more attention than it seems to get.
- TuringTest 4y ago
  > And for a large user base being confronted with this demand "when they just want to send a message" is frustrating. Isn't it a conceptual framework thing, though? People have no problem putting a topic when sending emails, and they are perfectly capable of following grouped conversations, as for example in Outlook. Maybe it would be enough to present it as "a mail application where you can also do chat on a reply thread", to create the right expectations?

georgyo 4y ago

I think the fact that you must give a thread topic to send a message. It's not particularly difficult concept, but different from every other chat app. And for a large user base being confronted with this demand "when they just want to send a message" is frustrating.

ctxc 4y ago
Zoho Cliq solves this by using ML to parse the message and give a suitable name. It's suitable 7/10 times, and the remaining 3 - it either doesn't matter that much or is trivial to rename. Zulip should try that if they haven't already.
- darkteflon 4y ago
  I hadn’t heard of Cliq. Do you have lots of experience with it? What do you think of it?
  - ctxc 4y ago
    Disclaimer: I work for Zoho, but in a different team. I find that I really like it for work. But for informal interactions (gaming etc) I like Discord better because of the voice channels. In Cliq they're "calls" and feel much more formal.
darkteflon 4y ago
Yeah that’s consistent with what we found. The threading model is so powerful, because even large teams that are mainly async can actually find stuff they need, _in context_. That’s really difficult or impossible in something like Slack, Discord, etc, and the value of that can’t really be overstated. On the other hand, you’re asking people to buy into what is essentially a completely different paradigm than what they’re used to. Maybe it’s more like a loosely-structured wiki than a chat app. I really like it, though. I feel like it deserves a lot more attention than it seems to get.
TuringTest 4y ago
> And for a large user base being confronted with this demand "when they just want to send a message" is frustrating. Isn't it a conceptual framework thing, though? People have no problem putting a topic when sending emails, and they are perfectly capable of following grouped conversations, as for example in Outlook. Maybe it would be enough to present it as "a mail application where you can also do chat on a reply thread", to create the right expectations?