Team messengers have taken the world by storm. I still remember using Lync in my first company 8 years ago and it was pretty basic. While the kind of integration that it provided with outlook and other microsoft software was exceptional, it was still limited to just chat. Slack, Hipchat, Microsoft Teams, Flock, Twist etc are the new breed of team chat software and they aim to improve productivity and offer much more than just ‘chat’.
With Flock one of the things that we have tried to accomplish is to create a platform which is more easy to use and extensible than anything else out there. We believe that it is so powerful that it can be considered amongst the like of other webOS’s like zeroPC and eyeOS.
With FlockOS , we set out with the following goals in mind:
- Apps should feel like they are a part of the native interface
- App discovery should be easy so that it benefits users and app developers
Here’s what we have accomplished so far
Apps should feel like they are a part of the native interface
Some platforms rely on ‘slash commands’ for apps to be triggered. So to create a poll you have to type a syntax in this format
/poll “Pool question in double quotes” “first option in double quotes” “second option in double quotes”
To create a note
/notes my private note
To list notes
/notes list all
And so on. Every single app you install adds a bunch of commands which you now have to remember. Slash commands are only useful for a certains section of tech-savvy users. They are incredibly hard to remember and cumbersome to use since they involve multiple parameters all of which can take different values. I have been using linux for more than 10 years now and still don’t remember the order of parameters for find.
So while flock provides slash commands, we also provide various hooks inside of the UI from where a user can launch apps.
There are 3 major areas where developers can choose to show their app icons.
- App Launcher
- Chat tab buttons
- Attachment picker
Apps launcher bar
This bar lists down all the apps that you have currently installed which can be launched standalone. So you can use this to directly launch an app. For e.g. over here I have launched the github app in a sidebar from the app launcher bar(far right) to checkout the recent commits in a repo.
App launcher on the far right
Chat tab buttons
Every single messaging app out there has some actions that you can perform on the current chat which are contextual in nature. Flock allows you to create apps which can take this context from the current chat tab.
For e.g if you wanted to view to-dos shared between you and another person, you just open his chat tab, tap on the to-do’s chat tab button and get a list of all to-dos between you and that person.
Chat tab buttons on the top right
Attachment picker
Most communication softwares allow you to add an attachment. Email allows you to attach files, pictures etc. IM goes a step ahead and apps like whatsapp allow you to attach your location, audio clip, camera clip etc. With flock we have exposed this area to developers too.
This allows you to create apps which can add absolutely any kind of content to the chat window.
For e.g. ‘a poll’ . If you have to poll app installed, then you can just click on the ‘poll’ attachment button which will popup a html modal window where you can add the options. Similar for notes, just click on the notes attachment button and it will popup a modal window in which you can type out your note with a full rich text editor.
Attachment picker buttons on the bottom left
App discovery should be easy
Instant messaging is slowly moving to a paradigm where apps are just as important, if not more, than the instant messaging platform itself. We believe that slash commands are bad for app developers and users both. Not only are they hard to discover and learn for new users ( which parameter goes first, order of command like parameters etc) ,they are bad for the app developers too since they barely get any exposure. A slash command is just a text and the opportunity for a developer to do branding is quite less. We believe that branding in apps is important, since this ensures that user’s can recommend high quality apps to other people and it also provides much needed exposure to app developers.
In flock we tried to solve this by making sure all apps have app icons. This way apps are always visible in the main interface and people can start using them right from day 1 of their job which having to learn what apps in flock are. Some non tech savvy people don’t even realize that they are using an external app ! This allows you to customize flock completely for your team, it you are a marketing team all the buttons on your flock interface can be marketing apps, same goes for tech, design and even colleges ! Since apps are in html/js you can even create apps which only run inside of your team and can access internal APIs ! Best part is that these apps will run across mobile, web and desktop.
FlockOS has always focussed on developers. As developers we understand that you also deserve visibility for an app. In case of slash commands, all the user sees is a name of your app. Which is why we have provided multiple hooks for app developers to showcase their icons. This greatly helps brand recall. So if your to-do app is the best, users can easily recall it while installing it in a new team or while suggesting it to a friend because they would be familiar with your app icon. Since all apps are html/css based you can provide your own UI/UX to change the look and feel of the app. We believe that UX is also an integral part of an app experience and this is something that developers can use to improve how user’s interact with their app.
We are just getting started, while the first version of FlockOS is stable and you can start building apps for it right now, there is still a long way to go. We would love to hear feedback and suggestions from the developer community on how we can make this platform better.
Disclaimer: I work for flock and can be reached directly at ajit.dh AT flock dot com