Optimizing Efficiency and Communication in Slack through AI-Driven Channel Summarization and Notification Management.
INTRODUCTION
Understanding the Context
Slack has become an indispensable communication platform for organizations of every size, from small startups to global enterprises. As of early 2025, it supports over 42 million daily active users across more than 150 countries, highlighting its global reach and scalability.
Whether your team works in a single office or across continents, Slack helps streamline communication, reduce noise, and keep everyone aligned. Its flexible notification settings and smart prioritization features make it effective in both high-volume and focused work environments.
MY ROLE
UX/UI Designer
TEAM
2 Designers
TOOLS
Figma
DURATION
5 Weeks
Figjam
Google Suite
Jira
PROBLEM
Misaligned Notifications Disrupt Focus and Clarity
Slack is designed for fast-paced communication, but in high-volume environments, that speed can turn into noise without the right structure. As channels multiply and conversations run in parallel, important updates often get buried. Not all messages carry the same weight, yet the current notification system treats them as equally urgent—leaving users to manually filter what matters from what doesn't.
This creates more than just alert fatigue. Without intelligent filtering or support for focus-driven workflows, users face decision fatigue, fragmented attention, and reduced productivity. The result is increased cognitive load, misalignment within teams, and a lack of adaptive tools to manage growing complexity—especially as work bleeds into personal time and teams scale across time zones.
FRAMING THE CHALLENGE
Why This Problem Mattered
Ongoing usage patterns and behavioral insights revealed that Slack’s constant stream of messages, threads, and alerts introduced unnecessary friction into daily workflows. Instead of supporting productivity, it often added to the cognitive burden, requiring users to work harder just to stay focused and informed.
This wasn’t just a usability flaw, it was a deeper opportunity to rethink how attention is managed in high-volume digital environments. By improving the notification experience, we aimed to reduce noise, support faster prioritization, and create a more intentional communication flow that grows with team complexity.
OPPORTUNITY
Why This Change Makes a Difference
In high-volume workspaces, channels can generate hundreds of messages and multiple active threads each day, making it easy for important details to get buried. AI offers a way to quickly surface the most relevant updates, decisions, and action items, helping users catch up without sifting through every post.
Notifications are another key factor in the balance between focus and distraction. When every alert feels equally urgent, productivity suffers. Custom Notifications give users the ability to decide what deserves their attention, reducing unnecessary interruptions and keeping communication aligned with their priorities.
SOLUTION
Designing for Clarity and Focus
Our approach introduced two targeted features that address these challenges in a practical and user-focused way.
AI Summarization
Generates concise summaries of lengthy channel discussions, highlighting critical outcomes and mentions. This helps users stay informed and aligned in far less time.
Custom Notifications
Allows users to set personalized rules for alerts, ensuring that only messages matching specific keywords, topics, or senders trigger a notification. This supports focus while keeping essential updates visible.
By combining these tools, Slack can move from overwhelming communication streams to an adaptive, user-driven experience that supports quick catch-ups, informed decisions, and uninterrupted deep work.
ASSUMPTIONS
Our Starting Point
Before conducting research, we outlined our initial assumptions about how Slack users experience communication within the platform. These assumptions were based on our own observations, prior experience with Slack, and general patterns seen in other team collaboration tools.
Buried Messages
In busy channels, important updates quickly get lost in the flow, making them easy to miss.
Notification Overload
Constant alerts pull users’ attention in every direction, making it harder to focus and get things done.
Fragmented Information
When details are spread across too many channels, tasks slip through the cracks and responsibilities get overlooked.
Channel Overload
Too many channels make it difficult for teams to follow key conversations and keep track of what matters.
Unclear Channel Priorities
Users often struggle to tell which channels matter most, leading to missed updates and confusion.
Do you like this personality?
DESK RESEARCH
Understanding User Needs
To validate and refine our assumptions, we analyzed user feedback from multiple online sources, including Google Play, the Apple App Store, and Reddit. These platforms provided direct insights into how Slack is experienced by a wide range of users, revealing common pain points, feature requests, and recurring frustrations. This desk research served as a starting point for identifying patterns and prioritizing areas for improvement in our later design process.
Overuse of Group Chats
Inefficient Notification Management
Declining Product Usability
Poor Communication Experience
Poor Navigation Hierarchy
Inconsistent Conversation Sorting
Cluttered Interface and Disorganized Messaging
INTERVIEW INSIGHTS
What Challenges Are Slack Users Facing?
We spoke with over six Slack users, ranging from casual contributors to daily power users, to better understand how they navigate communication, notifications, and workflows.
Their experiences revealed consistent friction points: information overload, unclear priorities, and difficulty maintaining focus in fast-moving channels. These insights pointed to clear opportunities to reduce noise, enable smarter prioritization, and make Slack more manageable in day-to-day work.
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"Struggles to locate specific names or message titles in long, fast-moving conversation threads."
"Communication is generally okay, but receiving too many messages can be overwhelming."
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"Other platforms feel simpler, but Slack becomes powerful once you learn how to use it, especially with high activity."
"Wanted notifications for only high-priority updates but found no built-in way to filter them without manual effort."
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"Lacks a way to prioritize channels by relevance, making it easy to overlook high-priority updates."
"Sometimes miss important messages because there is no feature to highlight specific channels."
Key Insights
Too many notifications feel overwhelming.
Can't prioritize or highlight key channels.
No built-in way to filter for high-priority updates.
Hard to find messages in long threads.
PERSONA
User Perspectives
We created two core personas, a junior and a senior user, based on interview insights. Each represented different goals, habits, and pain points within Slack. These perspectives guided our design decisions and ensured solutions addressed both everyday challenges and high-level workflow needs.
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SENIOR USER
Sarah
“It’s hard to keep up when everything feels urgent—I need a better way to stay focused and keep work separate from life.”
Focus Points
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Hopes for a quicker, more intuitive way to switch between channels and find key information during busy moments.
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Needs a smarter notification system to surface high-priority updates in real time, allowing her to focus without being pulled in multiple directions.
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Looks for a clearer way to manage message overload and avoid missing key details buried in long threads and fast-moving conversations.
Pressure Points
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Struggles to navigate quickly between channels and threads, making it hard to access important files and messages during high-volume conversations.
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Lacks an efficient way to prioritize critical notifications, leading to distractions and difficulty staying focused on urgent tasks.
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Finds it challenging to maintain work-life balance due to constant notifications and difficulty disconnecting from work.
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JUNIOR USER
John
"I’m still new, so I need easy tools to manage files, keep up with messages, and stay organized without getting stressed."
Focus Points
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Looking for a simple way to organize and find shared files without getting lost in threads or channels.
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Wants more control over notifications to reduce overwhelm and focus on what’s most important.
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Needs an easier way to keep track of conversations across channels to avoid missing messages and reply faster.
Pressure Points
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Has trouble finding and organizing shared files, often feeling confused by where things are stored.
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Feels overwhelmed by too many notifications and messages, making it hard to keep up with important updates.
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Struggles to manage multiple channels at once, sometimes leading to delays in responding or losing track of conversations.
Competitive Analysis
Analyzing Market & Competitions
Before outlining proposed solutions, I conducted a comparative analysis focused on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of Slack’s competitors. While Slack has relatively few direct competitors, it overlaps with several indirect platforms that offer similar features for team communication and collaboration. By reviewing and comparing their pros and cons, I gained insight into gaps in the current experience and surfaced opportunities to enhance usability, workflow efficiency, and user satisfaction within Slack.
Microsoft Teams
Pros
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Strong Microsoft 365 integration
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Structured layout with a sidebar and tab system
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Includes built-in bots and AI support
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Offers robust file integration (OneDrive, SharePoint)
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Wide keyboard shortcut options and accessibility features
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Consistent experience across desktop and mobile
Cons
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Interface can feel cluttered for new users
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Limited customization for status messages and themes
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Notification management can be difficult in busy workspaces
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Less flexible than Slack in some customization areas
Discord
Pros
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Organized voice/text channels with strong moderation tools
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Ability to pin messages within channels
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Advanced control over notifications (mute, disable, etc.)
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Integrates well with platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Spotify
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Great for community engagement and casual team use
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Consistent experience across platforms
Cons
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File upload limits unless upgraded to Nitro
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Less suited for professional task and project management
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Interface may feel too casual for business environments
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Lacks built-in workflow or automation tools
Trello
Pros
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Visual, card-based organization for projects and tasks
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Drag-and-drop simplicity
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Power-Ups for integrations (Slack, Google Drive, Jira, etc.)
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Users can star boards for easy access
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Highly customizable with backgrounds, labels, and covers
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Easy learning curve
Cons
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Not designed for channel-based communication
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Lacks threaded conversations and real-time messaging
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No built-in direct messaging
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More task-focused than conversation-focused
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Limited notification customization
Asana
Pros
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Clean task-based interface with visual project tracking
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Easy assignment of tasks with due dates and subtasks
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Supports multiple views: list, board, timeline, calendar
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Strong collaboration features: comments, followers, status updates
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Integrates well with Slack, Google Drive, Zoom, and more
Cons
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Not designed for real-time chat or threaded discussions
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Lacks built-in direct messaging or channel-based communication
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Notification settings are limited and less flexible than Slack
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May require paid plans for advanced automation and reporting
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Can feel overwhelming for new users unfamiliar with project management tools
How Might We.....
How might we improve channel organization and task management in Slack to reduce confusion and enhance efficiency for users?
How might we guide users in tailoring their Slack experience without feeling overwhelmed?
How might we design a notification system that prioritizes important messages and
minimizes distractions, allowing users to focus on critical tasks?
JOURNEY MAP
Uncovering key moments and opportunities across the experience
With a clear picture of our target users and their pain points, we charted their end-to-end experience in Slack, from the moment they log in to the completion of a task. The map captured their actions, thoughts, and emotions at each stage, making it easier to spot where friction occurs and where meaningful improvements could make the biggest difference.
Senior User Journey Map
Junior User Journey Map
IDEATION
Breaking down the HMW statements to ideate
To guide our idea generation, we translated our design requirements into clear and actionable How Might We statements. These were kept broad enough to inspire diverse thinking while still focused on the core challenges, ensuring our brainstorming stayed creative yet aligned with the project’s goals.
Prioritization Matrix
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SKETCH
Low-Fidelity Thinking
We began with a series of low-fidelity sketches to explore how AI-powered features could integrate seamlessly into Slack’s existing workflows. Given Slack’s scale and daily use across teams, it was important that any new functionality felt easy to adopt and didn’t get in the way of how people already use the platform. These early sketches helped us quickly test different approaches for summarization, notification control, and entry points , allowing us to shape solutions that felt clear, easy to use, and genuinely helpful from the very beginning.
DESIGN
High-Fidelity Screens
AI in Slack
AI Icon
Clicking the Slack AI icon opens a side panel.
AI Panel
The AI Panel provides users with features like smart suggestions, helping them stay focused while keeping their main workspace visible.
Suggested Questions Panel
After clicking a suggested question, the user quickly receives an AI-generated response based on recent channel activity. If needed, Slack AI offers relevant follow-up questions to guide next steps or deeper exploration. A search bar at the bottom also allows users to ask custom questions or explore additional topics.
Project Update Panel
This panel provides a focused view of project progress without the need to sort through multiple messages or tasks. Users can filter by assignee, task status, date range, and channel to generate a clear summary in their preferred format—such as a list, bullet points, or a brief written overview.
Summarization Panel
Slack AI helps users quickly catch up on any channel by generating focused summaries based on selected content type, date range, and format. This eliminates the need to scroll through long threads or review past messages manually.
Summarization Panel Respond
After applying filters such as content type, date range, or format, the Summarization Panel Respond delivers a tailored summary. This ensures users receive context-specific insights, allowing them to stay focused on the most relevant updates without needing to scroll through every thread.
Quick Actions
With these icons, users can easily copy, like, dislike, share content, or listen to it out loud — all in one place for quick access.
These icons make things quick and easy — you can copy, react, share, or listen without any hassle. It’s all about smoother, more effortless interaction.
Maximize AI Panel
With the maximized option, the AI Panel expands to provide richer insights and smart suggestions while keeping the main workspace visible. This allows users to stay more focused, reduce distractions, and manage their tasks without constant context switching.
Notification Filter
Notify from Specific People
Users can access notification preferences from multiple entry points to customize alerts, including the ability to receive notifications only from selected individuals, helping them stay focused on what matters most.
VALIDATIONS
Test Results
To validate the effectiveness of the proposed AI summarization and customizable notification system, I conducted usability testing with 10 experienced Slack users who rely on the platform daily for cross-functional communication. The goal was to assess whether AI-driven summaries and notification customization could enhance efficiency and reduce cognitive load in high-volume workspaces.
Key Insights
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Efficiency: 8 of 10 participants (80%) reported that AI-generated summaries helped them process updates faster and reduced the need to scroll through lengthy threads.
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Focus: 7 of 10 (70%) said that customized notifications minimized unnecessary interruptions, helping them stay focused on high-priority tasks.
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Adoption Readiness: 9 of 10 (90%) expressed a positive attitude toward integrating AI features into their daily Slack workflow, noting improvements in clarity and productivity.
Outcome
These findings validated that introducing contextual AI summarization and flexible notification controls meaningfully improves awareness, task prioritization, and team focus. The data also supported the feature’s scalability potential across diverse teams, confirming both usability and desirability for implementation within Slack’s ecosystem.
TAKEAWAYS
What We Learned
This project showed how even widely-used communication platforms like Slack can become overwhelming without thoughtful support and personalization. Through research and pain point analysis, we found that professionals often struggle with notification fatigue, missed updates, and the challenge of keeping up in fast-moving channels.
To address these issues, we introduced two key solutions: a flexible notification management system and an AI-driven summarization assistant, both designed to bring clarity, reduce noise, and support more focused work.
The AI assistant delivers tailored, time-specific summaries based on content type, priority, and format, helping users quickly regain context without scrolling through endless threads.
The updated notification system makes it easier to stay focused by letting users choose to hear only from specific people. Whether it's a manager, teammate, or key collaborator, this option helps cut through the noise and keep attention on what really matters.
Every design decision was grounded in real user behavior, leading to an experience that improves personal productivity, team alignment, and overall well-being. This work reinforced the importance of building human-centered tools that don’t just connect people — they help them communicate with clarity and control.
