#12 Why Notion Needs Live Chat for Better Team Collaboration?
As a Product Manager @ Notion, proposing Live Chat on Notion's Shared pages
Intro
Last week, I was chatting with my cousin (Chaitanya Pinapaka) on a product idea he pitched and we were sharing thoughts of whether it’s an actual problem and how it helps people.
We want to add it to our shared-notes, so immediately opened Notion and created a page, once he shared the page with me, we both were on that page but went back to iMessages where we were brainstorming and then again switched to write on Notion’s common doc.
You see a problem? 🤔
The moment we started doing this, realized that traditional-doc sharing could have a chat option so that it’s easy for us to stay on same page and continue chatting and documenting our thoughts with the convenience of time and single platform.
The Problem
Traditional document-sharing starting from Google Docs, Confluence, Microsoft Word, and including Notion has the “Comments”. You can highlight any line and tag a team member/person to comment your thoughts or question.
The tagged member gets notified and:
If they are busy then their response is delayed and reply later that day or after.
They might even receive an email reminder but still it’s going to be later.
Can we do better? 🤷
Why is this a Problem?
Delayed responses impacts productivity.
The commenting style is not a live chat and it impacts collaboration efficiency.
User experience is a downside for those who want to brainstorm on the doc.
We have slack, teams and other channels to chat and brainstorm before coming to the doc then why do we still need a live chat on the shared doc?
It’s all about experience of how people use it and what they use it for.
Why cannot we bring an engaging collaboration while writing a doc?
Why it should be an isolated space as whenever people can find time or want to add more comments, then only should open this doc?
Proposed Solution
Introducing Live Chat experience on the Notion’s shared spaces/pages. Now team members do not need to switch between Slack and Notion | Teams and Notion | or whatever messaging channel they are using.
We remove the friction that’s sitting between the best experience of using doc-sharing and YOU so that your focus on the actual context increases when you chat on the page itself.
Benefits of Live Chat:
You can see members who are active on the page and directly chat with them to solve queries faster.
If you are making changes and need to brainstorm or discuss certain parts of the page, no need of switching to other channels, you can 1:1 chat on the doc itself.
The user focus will be improved when chatting 1:1 by being in center of context.
Imagine sharing the doc link on Slack and then discussing about it there, you can do it but your attention might be jumping to other messages on Slack.
This reduces unnecessary deviation from the actual focus you need around the context of that particular document.
So then, we don’t need commenting style chat?
While it still exists, team could use it for async communication which are not priority and doesn’t need active focus or immediate attention.
What are the Risks and Trade-offs?
It might confuse the users, choosing between comments and live chat could bring confusion initially. (May be inviting for live chat and setting up 15m calendar to brainstorm could clarify what they are going to use)
Showing a clear indication of use-case is highly important.
Even though live chat is actively going on, still users might jump to Slack or emails because of other notifications. (This live chat could only create a focused environment be reducing the hassle of switching)
Conclusion
We know the traditional doc sharing doesn’t provide best user experience in document collaboration and always teams need to switch to other channels to communicate effectively.
If we implement “Live Chat”on shared pages, this could increase collaboration efficiency and user’s attention on the context they are chatting about.
Results in improved productivity on priority/brainstorming docs and collaborative-writing becomes engaging.
Of all the existing doc-sharing apps and platforms, why I picked Notion?
I just love it!
This proposal is also for Google Docs, Confluence etc..,The value is in making the doc-sharing more effective and collaborative.
What’s going on with me?
I’m obsessed with Arc Browser, Here’s a link to download Arc, the browser I was telling you about!
My most used app on mac is Notion for everything — Notes, Podcast Calendar etc.., I love it because of it’s modern experience for writing docs and notes.
If you are curious about how industry experts make decisions, tune in to my podcast: The Hustle Chapters 🎧
My graduation countdown has begun and I’m 4 months away (16 weeks) 🥹
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