With the cases of coronavirus dramatically rising, companies are vividly considering work from home option for all of their employees, potentially contributing to the adoption of communication applications and platforms like Slack. Slack, considering this outgrowing demand, has begun rolling out an overhaul of its platform, making it easier for the working from home employees to collaborate and communicate.

According to company officials, Slack is currently redesigning its communication platform to offer a simpler, customized, and more organized experience to its users. The overhaul is estimated to be rolled in the global market over the next few weeks.

It has been reported that the new platform is likely to include a new navigation bar to search across an organization, a sidebar spanning options for key conversations, files and apps, and also a new compose button to initiate a chat or a message anywhere. The newly redesigned platform can be availed for free. However, it would see the absence of new sidebar section and various other features, which is only available on paid Slack plans.

On this front, a reliable source cited that a paid user spends an average more than nine hours each workday connected to Slack, with nearly ninety minutes of active use. This makes to more than 5 billion activities that take place every week in Slack, from keeping tabs on recent sales deal to solving customer support tickets.

Speaking on the overhaul, the VP of design at Slack, Ethan Eismann, commented that this redesign adds to the company’s largest innovation in history. Adding further, he stated that the management team has taken vivid historical features and reorganized them in a manner which makes them more apparent in the right way and easy to use.

While numerous companies scrambling to set their employees up to work remotely in response to the coronavirus outbreak, this strategic move by Slack is predicted to bring an ease in operation and communication, while bolstering its stance in the global tech market.

Source credit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/18/21184865/slack-redesign-update-sidebar-changes-available-now-download