Question: |
What’s the best way to explain Slack to non-tech customers? |
Format: |
Two competing websites with interactive software. |
Tools: |
Keynote, InVision (prototyping software), the real Slack software, and some acting. |
Slack had two competing ideas to prototype. First was “The Tenacious Tour,” a step-by-step explanation of the software. Just as with Blue Bottle Coffee, this idea could be faked with a series of slides that looked like a website. No sweat.
But the other idea, “Bot Team,” was tricky. It involved a team of computer-controlled “bots” who would send messages back and forth to one another, and even respond to messages typed by the user. To be realistic, the bots should respond to a variety of questions and comments from the customer, an experience impossible to fake with slides.
Merci had the solution: We could pretend to be computer-controlled characters ourselves. During the test, we’d send messages to the user, and—like bots—reply in a not-too-intelligent way. Of course, if the idea proved successful, Slack would have to write computer software to control the bots. They could never have teams of people sending messages to every customer who visited their website. They’d need a staff of thousands, or millions! But for our test, for just five customers, it would work.