Beginning in the spring of 2023, I led the design efforts for Polly's Q&A functionality for our Slack and web users. We aimed to create a powerful Q&A solution to streamline the experience and outcomes for teams holding live Q&A events. As a product team, we had identified this gap in our offering and were committed to building the best solution for this problem space. This feature promised to hold up our brand promise of being the top engagement tool in Slack and also support our product positioning in the $911 million Engagement market.

Polly Q&A for Slack

Summary: In 2023, the Polly team embarked on a mission to create a powerful Q&A engagement tool for Slack users. This tool aimed to optimize engagement and question submissions in Slack and be an easy, no-nonsense solution for facilitators of Q&A events.

Deliverables: discovery and exploration workshops, wireframes, prototypes, and final UI comps and UI components.

Armed with some early customer needs and requirements, we organized offsite workshops and working sessions to dive deeper into the Q&A problem space. Our team explored the nuances, roles (Creator/Moderators/Facilitators, Audience), and interaction dynamics involved in the "whole" Q&A experience. This exploration included submission moderation, audience upvoting, presenting results in video meetings, and text responses from/to the Q&A facilitators. The outcome of this exploration was a resounding success, as our team gained a deep understanding of the problem space and came away with some solid ideas on what is needed for an ideal product solution.

Exploration Output

Defined user profiles and distinct usecases mapped to solution types (Suggestion boxes, whistleblower feedback, AMAs, etc).

User profiles

High level Usecases

Armed with valuable insights, we transitioned to convergence on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). By refining prototypes, wireframes, and feedback sessions with stakeholders, development, and customer partners, we got a clear picture of the MVP and the functional requirements for launch. Below are some of the early wireframes and sketches from the project.

Moving fast and lean

Once we had a solid picture of how this all fits together, we began moving into the project's development. I began organizing the components and chroming out the unique views. One of the early views we built was the audience web voting view. This enabled Q&A sessions for teams that did not have everyone on Slack by providing a place where non-Slack members could vote via the web.

The work around the audience prioritized incentivizing and easing active participation. We achieved this with clear signals for states of the Q&A, social pressure/enticement to participate, and just making the act of participation dead simple and fun to do.

Engage the audience

The primary purpose of this project was to simplify and manage all the user submissions during Q&A events. We made that job easier for end-users by moving this work away from Slack and providing them with a dedicated view to manage all the Q&A messages.

In this Control View, users could approve, dismiss, mark as answered, and archive questions that were addressed. We also set the foundation for this view to eventually support multiplayer and allow for threaded conversations with submitters on their submissions, making it an incredibly powerful surface in the app. Take a look below.

Managed randomness

After refining the core Q&A mechanics, attention turned to addressing audience presentation needs. Insights from enterprise customers guided the optimization of these interactions. Extensive prototyping was undertaken to elevate the presentation mode. We did a number of refinements to this based on user validation and feedback.

Let it roll!

During Q&A sessions, presenters can highlight and expand the question being answered.

The final push centered on the analysis component of running these Q&A sessions. What meaningful insights could teams derive from each Q&A experience? By collaborating with our product champions and analyzing competitor tools, we identified the data crucial for reporting and assessing a Q&A session.

Deeper insights

The day has finally arrived. Polly officially launched this feature on February 16th with a big push on social! The feature even hit 1st place on Product Hunt for app of the day. It’s still early to speak to the overall impact, but the initial response has been extremely positive.

Launch day!

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