什么是松弛，人们为什么喜欢它？

Slack is a workplace chat app that’s so popular, the company that owns it was valued at more than $20 billion. You’ve probably seen it mentioned in the news. If you haven’t used it yet, here’s what you need to know.

Slack是一个非常受欢迎的工作场所聊天应用程序，拥有它的公司估值超过200亿美元。 您可能已经看到了新闻中提到的内容。 如果您还没有使用过，这就是您需要知道的。

什么是松弛？ (What is Slack?)

Slack is a workplace communication tool, “a single place for messaging, tools and files.” This means Slack is an instant messaging system with lots of add-ins for other workplace tools. The add-ins aren’t necessary to use Slack, though, because the main functionality is all about talking to other people. There are two methods of chat in Slack: channels (group chat), and direct message or DM (person-to-person chat). Let’s take a quick look at the user interface.

Slack是一种工作场所通信工具，“一个用于传递消息，工具和文件的地方”。 这意味着Slack是一个即时消息传递系统，带有许多用于其他工作场所工具的加载项。 不过，使用Slack并不需要插件，因为主要功能就是与其他人交谈。 在Slack中，有两种聊天方法： 渠道 (群聊)和直接消息或DM (人对人聊天)。 让我们快速浏览一下用户界面。

Slack 松弛

There are four main things to pay attention to in Slack:

Slack中有四个主要注意事项：

1. The name of the Slack instance.
   Slack实例的名称。
2. The list of channels you’re a member of.
   您所属的频道列表。
3. The list of people you’ve direct messaged.
   您直接发送消息的人员列表。
4. The chat window.
   聊天窗口。

When a customer wants to start using Slack, they choose a name for their Slack instance. This then becomes part of the unique URL. So, if Wile E. Coyote wants to create a Slack instance for ACME Slingshots, his Slack instance would be https://acmeslingshot.slack.com/. Wile E. can then invite anyone he wants to be a member of his Slack instance.

当客户想要开始使用Slack时，他们为其Slack实例选择一个名称。 然后，它成为唯一URL的一部分。 因此，如果Wile E. Coyote想要为ACME Slingshots创建一个Slack实例，那么他的Slack实例将是https://acmeslingshot.slack.com/。 然后，Wile E.可以邀请任何想要成为其Slack实例成员的人。

Channels in Slack can be public, meaning any member can see and join that channel, or private, meaning only members of that channel can see it or invite others to join. DMs are always private, although they can include up to 8 people.

Slack中的频道可以是公开的，这意味着任何成员都可以查看和加入该频道，也可以是私人的，这意味着只有该频道的成员可以看到或邀请其他人加入。 DM始终是私人的，尽管它们最多可以容纳8个人。

The chat window is where all the actual communication happens. You can read any reply to messages, use emoji reactions, add gifs, see RSS feeds, set reminders, get add-in notifications, and various other bells and whistles. But more than anything, this is where you talk to people.

聊天窗口是所有实际通信发生的地方。 您可以阅读对邮件的任何回复，使用表情符号React，添加gif，查看RSS feed，设置提醒，获取加载项通知以及其他各种提示。 但最重要的是，您在这里与人交谈。

Slack有什么优点？ (What’s So Great About Slack?)

When Slack came along, there were no real competitors in the market. That’s not to say there weren’t other chat apps, but Slack combined an intuitive UI with both group and person-to-person messaging. It also allows companies to have a measure of control over who can use it through the invitation system. Other tools could do the same, but without the same usability (Campfire, now BaseCamp, was an obvious one). None of the traditional vendors (Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Sun, and so on) had anything comparable to Slack.

当Slack出现时，市场上没有真正的竞争对手。 这并不是说没有其他聊天应用程序，而是Slack将直观的UI与群组消息和个人消息传递结合在一起。 它还使公司可以控制谁可以通过邀请系统使用它。 其他工具可以做同样的事情，但是却没有相同的可用性( Campfire ，现在是BaseCamp，很明显)。 传统供应商(微软，苹果，IBM，Sun等)都没有可与Slack相提并论的东西。

This lack of corporate size was also a benefit. Slack was small enough to be responsive and quick when it came to adding new features, like emoji reactions (great for users) and 2-factor authentication (great for admins). For some users, the fact that Slack wasn’t owned by a big traditional vendor was benefit enough, but that doesn’t explain why Slack is so popular.

公司规模的缺乏也是一个好处。 Slack足够小，可以在添加新功能时快速响应，例如表情符号React(对用户来说很棒)和2要素身份验证 (对管理员来说很棒)。 对于某些用户来说，Slack 不是由传统的大型供应商拥有的事实就足够了，但这并不能解释Slack为何如此受欢迎。

Slack does two things really well: design and understanding its users’ needs. These twin pillars are the basis of most good products but are surprisingly difficult to do well, as many a failed app will prove. The rough initial design was created by Slack founder, Stewart Butterfield (the same guy who co-founded Flickr back in the early 2000s) and his team, and then given to a third party called MetaLab to polish. Andrew Wilkinson from MetaLab explained:

Slack确实做到两件事：设计和了解用户需求。 这些双重Struts是大多数优质产品的基础，但令人惊讶的是，很难做到这一点，因为许多失败的应用程序都将证明这一点。 最初的粗略设计是由Slack的创始人Stewart Butterfield(与2000年代初共同创立Flickr的那个人)及其团队创建的，然后交给了​​名为MetaLab的第三方进行抛光。 MetaLab的Andrew Wilkinson 解释说 ：

“To get attention in a crowded market, we had to find a way to get people’s attention. Most enterprise software looks like a cheap 70’s prom suit—muted blues and greys everywhere—so, starting with the logo, we made Slack look like a confetti cannon had gone off. Electric blue, yellows, purples, and greens all over. We gave it the color scheme of a video game, not an enterprise collaboration product…vibrant colors, a curvy sans-serif typeface, friendly icons, and smiling faces and emojis everywhere.”

“要在拥挤的市场中引起关注，我们必须找到一种方法来引起人们的关注。 大多数企业软件看起来像是便宜的70年代舞会服，到处都是蓝色和灰色，因此，从徽标开始，我们使Slack看起来像五彩纸屑大炮已经消失了。 遍布蓝色，黄色，紫色和绿色。 我们为它提供了视频游戏的配色方案，而不是企业协作产品……鲜艳的色彩，弯曲的无衬线字体，友好的图标以及笑脸和表情符号无处不在。”

In the same article, Wilkinson talks about how well-built Slack feels when you use it—which it does—and how the content, such as loading messages, is informal and often pretty funny, concluding, “It’s the same enterprise chat client underneath, but it’s playful, fun to use, and all that comes together to make it feel like a character in your life.”

在同一篇文章中，Wilkinson讨论了使用Slack时的感觉如何—确实如此—以及诸如加载消息之类的内容是非正式的并且通常很有趣的，总结说：“这是下面的同一家企业聊天客户端，但它既好玩，又有趣，而且所有这些使它成为您生活中的角色。”

When you look at the elements that comprise Slack, the ease of use, and reliability stand out. It’s easy for non-technical users to pick up, especially when compared to other group chat tools, like Basecamp or Microsoft Teams. Also, you can spin up your own Slack instance for free, even for personal use. And if you don’t like the “confetti cannon” look, it’s easy to change the colors.

当您查看构成Slack的元素时，易用性和可靠性脱颖而出。 非技术用户可以轻松接起 ，尤其是与其他群聊工具(如Basecamp或Microsoft Teams)相比时。 此外，您甚至可以免费使用自己的Slack实例，甚至供个人使用 。 而且，如果您不喜欢“五彩纸屑大炮”的外观，很容易更改颜色 。

But good design is not of much use if the functionality isn’t there. Chat is relatively easy to do, which is why most chat apps follow the same basic format: a window to view the conversation, and a place to type, either underneath or on the side. This is where Slack’s attention to the requirements of its users comes into play. Rather than reinvent the chat wheel, they focused on what people wanted from a chat app over and above the basic requirement of sending messages to each other.

但是，如果没有功能，那么好的设计就没有多大用处。 聊天相对容易进行，这就是为什么大多数聊天应用都遵循相同的基本格式的原因：一个用于查看对话的窗口，以及一个在下方或侧面进行输入的位置。 这就是Slack关注其用户需求的地方。 他们没有重塑聊天轮，而是将重点放在人们对聊天应用程序的需求之上，而不是互相发送消息的基本要求。

One of Slack’s most prominent selling points was that private channels and DMs couldn’t be read by Slack administrators without either the open consent of the members or a message being sent to all the users saying that an export of messages had happened. This gave a sense of privacy and security to users that other products (especially email) didn’t.

Slack最突出的卖点之一是，未经成员的公开同意或没有向所有用户发送消息已发生出口的消息，Slack管理员无法读取私有频道和DM。 这为用户提供了其他产品(尤其是电子邮件)所没有的隐私和安全感。

Thanks primarily to the GDPR legislation that came into force in Europe in 2018, though, this has changed—administrators on the higher-cost tiers can do a full export without informing their users. This shows how strongly many users valued the original privacy settings, a good demonstration of how—when not constrained by legislation—Slack understands what its users want.

不过，主要得益于2018年在欧洲生效的GDPR立法 ，这种情况已经发生了变化-成本较高的层级的管理员可以在不通知用户的情况下进行完整出口。 这表明有多少用户重视原始的隐私设置 ，很好地展示了Slack在不受法律约束的情况下如何理解其用户的需求。

They gain this understanding mainly by using the product themselves every day:

他们主要通过每天自己使用产品来获得这种理解：

“[W]ithin the walls of Slack HQ in San Francisco, the design team can test different user scenarios with its own departments. Each department acts as a microcosm of the larger customer base. For example, designers can learn more about how to improve Slack for finance teams by observing and gathering feedback from its own finance department.”

“在旧金山Slack HQ的墙壁上，设计团队可以通过自己的部门测试不同的用户场景。 每个部门都是更大的客户群的缩影。 例如，设计人员可以通过观察和收集其自身财务部门的反馈来了解有关如何提高财务团队的Slack的更多信息。”

As one of their product designers says in the same article: “User feedback is also regularly trickling in from outside of the company, and everyone serves weekly support shifts to better empathize with customers.”

正如他们的一位产品设计师在同一篇文章中说的那样：“用户反馈也经常从公司外部传入，每个人每周都会提供服务支持班次，以更好地体谅客户。”

How many companies do you know where everyone has to work a regular shift in support to make sure they understand customer pain points?

您知道有多少家公司的每个人都必须定期轮班提供支持以确保他们了解客户的痛点？

Slack also decided early on to push an ecosystem of app integrations. Users can integrate almost any app they want, from dev tools, like GitHub, Jenkins, and StackOverflow, to business tools, like Google Analytics, ServiceNow, MailChimp, or SalesForce. There are over 1500 apps Slack can integrate with, so if it can’t do something you need it to do, there’s probably an app that can. This turns Slack into a powerful hub application users can have open on one screen while working on another. In essence, Slack has become a one-stop-shop for a lot of users.

Slack还很早就决定推动应用程序集成生态系统。 从GitHub，Jenkins和StackOverflow等开发工具到Google Analytics(分析)，ServiceNow，MailChimp或SalesForce等业务工具，用户几乎可以集成所需的任何应用程序。 Slack可以集成超过1500个应用程序 ，因此，如果它无法完成您需要做的事情，则可能有一个应用程序可以集成。 这将Slack变成功能强大的中心应用程序，用户可以在一个屏幕上打开而在另一个屏幕上打开。 从本质上讲，Slack已成为许多用户的一站式商店。

The twin pillars of design and understanding its users’ needs have made Slack popular. This survey gives a good breakdown of what users think of Slack, and the findings are almost universally positive.

设计和了解用户需求的双重Struts使Slack受到欢迎。 这项调查很好地细分了用户对Slack的看法，调查结果几乎都是肯定的。

Slack is so popular that Atlassian—the billion-dollar Australian behemoth behind hugely successful productivity apps, like Jira and Confluence—admitted defeat in 2018 and sold its two efforts at a chat app, HipChat, and Stride, to Slack—userbase and all.

Slack如此受欢迎，以至于Atlassian(十亿美元规模的澳大利亚庞然大物背后的继Jira和Confluence等非常成功的生产力应用程序)在2018年失败了， 并将其在聊天应用程序 HipChat和Stride上的两项努力卖给了 Slack(用户群)。

At the time of writing, there’s a survey out there claiming Microsoft Teams is more popular than Slack. This survey was carried out by a Microsoft partner and is based on the number of companies that use each tool, not the preference of the users. Office 365 is, by far, the most used software in the business world, and Teams is included with it. Therefore, more companies use Teams simply because it’s available to them as part of their enterprise subscription.

在撰写本文时，有一项调查声称Microsoft Teams比Slack更受欢迎。 这项调查是由Microsoft合作伙伴进行的，调查的依据是使用每种工具的公司数量，而不是用户的偏好。 到目前为止，Office 365是商业世界中使用最多的软件 ，并且随附了Teams。 因此，更多的公司使用Teams只是因为它们可以作为企业订阅的一部分向他们提供。

松弛成本是多少？ (How Much Does Slack Cost?)

You can start Slack for free, but that plan only lets you access the 10,000 most-recent messages. It has other limitations, including only ten integrations, no single-channel or multichannel guests, and limited administration features.

您可以免费启动Slack，但是该计划仅允许您访问10,000条最新消息。 它还有其他限制，包括仅十次集成，没有单通道或多通道来宾以及有限的管理功能。

Once you’re on board, Slack is pretty expensive if you want the Plus edition. That tier gives you things like single sign-on and compliance exports, both of which are essential for any decent-sized business. How expensive? Around $12 per user, per month if you pay annually, or $15 per user, per month if you pay monthly. If you’ve got 1,000 users, and you pay annually, that’s $144,000. We’re not saying it’s not worth it, but that’s a hefty chunk of change.

一旦上船，如果您想要Plus版本，Slack的价格将非常昂贵。 该层为您提供诸如单点登录和合规性导出之类的功能，这对于任何体面的企业都是必不可少的。 多么昂贵？ 如果您按年付费，则每个用户每月约12美元，如果按月付费，则每个用户每月约15美元。 如果您有1000位用户，并且每年付款，则需要支付144,000美元。 我们并不是说这不值得，但这是巨大的变化。

You get many things with your subscription, but one thing you don’t get is the ability to host your own data. All data is held on Slack’s servers, which are actually Amazon’s servers because Slack runs on AWS. This is, in part, why Microsoft put Slack on their internal list of “discouraged” apps.; not only is Slack one of Microsoft’s official competitors (and vice versa), but Microsoft Azure is going head-to-head with Amazon Web Services for the multibillion-dollar cloud services market. This is unlikely to be a specific problem for your company, but depending on your legal jurisdiction, compliance requirements, or data handling policies, having your data on AWS using a third-party tool might not be acceptable.

您的订阅会带来很多好处，但您没有得到的一件事就是能够托管自己的数据。 所有数据都保存在Slack的服务器上，而Slack实际上是Amazon的服务器，因为Slack在AWS上运行 。 这就是部分原因， Microsoft为何将Slack列入其内部“不合格”应用程序列表 。 Slack不仅是Microsoft的官方竞争对手之一 ( 反之亦然 )，而且Microsoft Azure正在与Amazon Web Services并驾齐驱，争夺数十亿美元的云服务市场。 对于您的公司来说，这不太可能是一个特定的问题，但是根据您的法律管辖权，合规性要求或数据处理策略， 使用第三方工具在AWS上存储数据可能是不可接受的 。

什么不喜欢？ (What’s Not to Like?)

If your company can swallow the cost and doesn’t mind not having control of its data, there are still a few problems with the app itself. For example, Slack’s decentralization gives users control over which channels are created, which is great until you realize you have to check two dozen channels a day—partly to assuage FOMO and partly because you need to know what’s going on. This has a negative effect on some users, and it’s easy to see why, increasingly, people are finding Slack to be a time-sucker rather than a productive tool. If that’s you, you can choose to turn Slack off for a while.

如果您的公司可以降低成本并且不介意无法控制其数据，则该应用程序本身仍然存在一些问题。 例如，Slack的去中心化功能使用户可以控制创建哪些通道，这非常好，直到您意识到您每天必须检查两个通道(部分是为了缓解FOMO，另一部分是因为您需要了解最新情况)。 这对某些用户有负面影响，并且很容易理解为什么人们越来越发现Slack是浪费时间而不是生产工具。 如果是这样，您可以选择暂时关闭Slack。

A more serious problem, though, is that Slack doesn’t have a mute or block feature:

不过，更严重的问题是Slack 没有静音或阻止功能：

“Abstractly, this makes sense: Slack views itself as an organizational tool, and that tool is used in workplaces. Thus, the workplace policy and how that workplace handles harassment is how harassment on Slack should be handled.”

“抽象地讲，这是有道理的：Slack将自身视为组织工具，并且该工具用于工作场所。 因此，工作场所政策以及工作场所如何处理骚扰就是应对Slack的骚扰。”

If at first glance, this requirement seems odd, and you feel Slack’s position makes complete sense, you’ve probably never suffered the unwanted attention of someone who just won’t leave you alone. From the same article:

如果乍一看，这个要求似乎很奇怪，并且您觉得Slack的职位是完全合理的，那么您可能从未遭受过一个不会让您一个人呆着的人的不必要的关注。 在同一篇文章中：

“My friend was having uncomfortable interactions with a coworker over Slack—the platform she is required to use for many hours a day to do her job. She, therefore, couldn’t ignore it every time it pings her with messages, even though they were often from her harasser. As she cannot mute an individual, she would be forced to see his inappropriate messages every time that little red notification popped up.”

“我的朋友在与Slack的同事打交道时感到不舒服-她每天需要使用这个平台花很多小时来完成工作。 因此，即使邮件经常来自骚扰者，她也无法在每次向她发送邮件时忽略它。 由于她无法使某人静音，因此每次出现红色的小通知时，她都会被迫看到他的不适当消息。”

No matter your feelings on how a company should deal with employees hassling other employees, it’s not okay that people feel uncomfortable using Slack because it lacks this basic functionality.

无论您对公司应如何与雇员打交道而困扰其他雇员的感觉，使用Slack的人们都会感到不舒服，因为它缺乏此基本功能。

我们推荐松弛吗？ (Do We Recommend Slack?)

We like Slack a lot here at How-To Geek—we use it ourselves! It’s not perfect, and there are things we’d change, but, generally, it’s well-designed and user-friendly. Also—if you don’t care about keeping all your messages or having some enterprise toys— it’s free!

在How-To Geek，我们非常喜欢Slack，我们自己使用它！ 它不是完美的，有些事情我们会改变，但总体而言，它是经过精心设计和用户友好的。 此外，如果您不关心保留所有消息或拥有一些企业玩具，那么它是免费的！

We recommend you create a workspace and experiment with Slack to see if it suits your needs.

我们建议您创建一个工作区并尝试使用Slack来查看它是否适合您的需求。

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/428046/what-is-slack-and-why-do-people-love-it/