Table of Contents
The new navigation bar
One of the most significant changes to Slack is the expansion of the navigation bar. A new vertical navigation bar now extends from the left side of the Slack interface, with icons pointing to specialized views for direct messages, channels, and saved messages.
Some users see this navigation bar less as an organizational tool and more as an invasion of their space. “DMs used to be in the same sidebar [as] the list of chats, groups, and people, and now it's unnecessarily on its own,” one annoyed Reddit user posted recently.
Slack offers both free and premium membership plans. Searchable messages, screen sharing, third-party app integrations, and more advanced features are available with premium memberships.
The new Slack design collapses content into Home, DMs, Activity, and Later fields, and an overflow menu that contains Canvases, Files, and many other features. It makes sense to combine elements in order to enhance focus — after all, this should result in fewer distractions.
However, in practice, having vague categories only hinders clarity and adds to potential distractions. The term “Activity” listed in the sidebar serves as a catch-all term, creating uncertainty about the types of notifications that fall under this section. As a result, the notification badge on such an ambiguous section actually draws more attention, as the unread notifications could be related to any subject.
Disappearing direct messages
One of the most important features in Slack is direct messaging. With this feature, everyone can send a message to a colleague to ask for advice, send important info about projects they are working on together, or just share memes and fun stuff. As they like to say, Slack is a place where many people’s work lives, and direct messages are the only way to interact one-on-one on Slack.
With the new redesigned sidebar, their direct messages are harder to see. The previous version of Slack put a lot of emphasis on direct messages, having a special notification when someone sent you a direct message.
Now, in the new version of Slack, direct messages can sometimes get lost. Multiple users reported this — they can see that they have a new direct message from someone only if they enter the chat with that specific person. That’s so weird.
Collapsed workspaces
Another problem of the newly redesigned Slack is collapsed workspaces. All workspaces are now in one special sidebar, requiring the user to click between each workspace to see updates and messages.
For users who only work at one company, the redesign of this element probably changes very little. But, can you imagine the chaos this created for all the freelancers around the world, who are using Slack for their everyday communication with clients?
It’s a mess. It’s probably harder for them to find a client in Slack's sidebar than to find a new client to work with. The new redesign greatly decreased the user experience, leading to reduced productivity and frustration.
More “Unreads” notifications
Remember when Slack wanted to help its users to stay focused on their work by limiting their notifications? Well, Slack’s new design wants you to know that you have a lot more notifications than you can handle.
Now, if any of the channels has a new message a user hasn’t seen, a pop-up bubble will appear on the channel list informing them that down their list of possibly relevant (but probably irrelevant) channels, there are more “Unreads”.
“You have a new message.”
"You have an unread message."
It grabs your attention, and it never stops. Some of these messages may be important, but most of them are usually along the lines of a “Good morning, everyone!”, or “Hello team, I just want to share my morning with you” followed by a picture of their pet. That is not really important for work at that moment, but users still have to click through each of these channels to get rid of the “more unreads” bubble.
Pumble as a solution
Pumble is an all-in-one team collaboration and communication platform. It has everything that Slack has to offer, and much more — such as the built-in video conferencing feature. And it’s absolutely more affordable.
Have organized group and private conversations
Pumble enables real-time communication in all its relevant forms, from one-on-one conversations to invitational group chats and public channels. All direct messages are visible in the left sidebar, as you are already used to, as are all channels and group discussions.
Users can pin important messages to the top of the conversation, save messages, and put reactions on them. What’s more, they can also mention specific people (e.g. @johnsmith), the whole channel (e.g. @channel), or send everyone in the group a direct message (e.g. @here) in order to draw their attention.
Start video conferencing inside the app
Pumble also gives an opportunity to all of its users to organize video conferencing inside the app. Teams can collaborate in a live session, both via one-on-one and group video or voice calls. During the meeting, participants can talk, share their screen, send messages inside a call, and the host can record the meeting for those who could not attend it.
Share and search for more files
Furthermore, users can share files, browse through files within specific conversations, and sort and filter the search results so that they can easily find exactly what they’re looking for — with no limitations to how far they can go in their messaging history.
Stay focused with smart notifications
Pumble also features smart notifications, enabling users to stay up-to-date with all relevant information while also allowing them to set their preferences, mute channels they only use periodically, or activate a Do-not-disturb mode that stops all notifications when they need focused, continuous work.
Best of all, Pumble does all of this for free!
Move from Slack to Pumble
To import data from Slack to Pumble, you need to create a workspace on Pumble.
Then, export your data from Slack. After you have successfully completed that, you can import public and private channels, messages from those channels, and users from Slack to Pumble. Make sure that you are the Owner of your workspace on Pumble, as only workspace Owners can import Slack’s information. To import data, you need to:
- Navigate to Workspace settings,
- Select General settings from the dropdown menu,
- Open Import & Export section, Import tab,
- Click Choose zip file,
- Choose the zip file you previously downloaded from Slack,
- Ensure that the file was not edited, and
- Confirm the file and click Start import.
To learn more on how to move from Slack to Pumble, you can watch our full video guide:
Watch video (4:14)
Conclusion
Software will always require maintenance and updates to accommodate new form factors or technological capabilities. But when is enough simply enough? With free Slack alternative solutions like Pumble, you can always have your clutter-free interface at your fingertips. No distractions — everything you need, when you need it. Stay simple, use Pumble.