Neurodivergence + Slack Accessibility

We began by observing how neurodivergent users had tailored Slack to support their platform use. However, during our first interview, I realized many users are unaware of Slack's full range of customization options. This insight led us to pivot our approach.

Instead of observing current settings, we guided each participant through all customizable settings within Slack's preferences. I asked them to talk through each section and their motivations for changes they would make. This shift highlighted the issue of discoverability while allowing us to witness users tailor their settings in real-time.

‍This pivot became a key discovery moment. I pinpointed crucial design flaws, particularly surrounding the discoverability of accessibility features. Watching users interact with settings brought to the forefront the need for more intuitive design easily navigated by all users, regardless of neurodiversity.

Using qualitative coding foundations from user interviews, the contextual inquiry revealed insights directly correlating to potential design implementations

We conducted comparative analysis examining user experience and feature sets across Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams. These platforms were chosen based on market research relevance and participant experiences from user interviews.

To assess each platform's performance, we developed a checklist addressing onboarding experience, degree of customization, visual and textual overload, and ease of workflow integration. This allowed structured, quantifiable comparison of features critical to neurodivergent user experience.

Key Findings:

To gain in-depth knowledge of practical insights on Slack's current design motivations and accessibility considerations, we interviewed Maripaz Pacheco (Associate User Researcher at Slack) and Hannah Glazebrook (Accessibility Expert at Ceridian).

Method Goals:

Speaking to Maripaz provided firsthand insights into issues Slack users face as recognized by Slack's UX team. Her insights were grounded in company awareness of user challenges. She elaborated on diverse user research methods employed by Slack, including usability testing, user interviews, and diary studies.

Hannah advised us on developing better accessibility in digital design by grounding us in WCAG principles and demonstrating tools like WAVE, Microsoft Accessibility Insight, IBM Equal Access, and Google Lighthouse. She noted that while automated tools provide significant starting points, they have limitations focusing mainly on visual and keyboard navigation aspects.

Recognizing limitations of automated web scanners in evaluating Slack's accessibility, we conducted comprehensive secondary research to answer initial research questions about neurodivergent user experiences on Slack, evaluate existing accessibility initiatives, and establish robust design guidelines for neurodivergent inclusivity.

We aimed to align our design strategy with actual user needs and Slack's own accessibility framework. By immersing ourselves in Slack's internal forums and user feedback channels, we synthesized:
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Expanding knowledge across previous research methods with secondary research, we gained profound understanding of lived experiences of neurodivergence. We acknowledge these experiences can differ widely based on individual's specific condition and severity. The following themes illustrate underlying shared challenges and strengths across neurodivergence experiences:
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With research insights synthesized, we held design ideation sessions engaging in SCAMPER and Crazy 8's methods. This was open brainstorming with the requirement that we meet design requirements with each design. Through discussions and evaluations, we moved forward with four top designs that most closely aligned with design requirements and addressed user experience problem areas.

We held a feedback session with users from our target demographic to narrow focus from four designs to one or two. I focused on understanding how each design solved identified user problems. Through user selection and reflections, I identified two prominent designs: Tidy Bot (virtual assistant helping users "tidy" their Slack workspace) and Simple Mode (visually simplified layout that could be toggled on and off).
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As my team met to deliberate these results, a key question crossed my mind—could these designs be combined? With both designs well-received by users and meeting design requirements, I was curious if combining them would still meet user needs without adding cognitive load. Through collaboration with our designers, we re-ideated our design to include both Tidy Bot and Simple Mode, providing users with workspace organization support and ability to toggle potentially distracting features on and off.

User Evaluation From here we held our second feedback session, meeting with 4 users and 2 experts through moderated zoom meetings and a end of session survey. I wanted to understand user flows and see if we were actually solving the pain points we found without adding more cognitive load. I chose this format to allow for flexibility to speak with our users and to be able to record the meeting. I wanted to ensure we were aware of possible pitfalls in the design and could clearly understand user flow processes.
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We received both positive and negative feedback here that users did prefer our solution to what's currently offered in slack and liked the organization Tidybot offered. Unfortunately, we were still causing some cognitive load and confusion around certain functionalities. Through this feedback session, I compiled 3 key insights that i then collaborated with our designers to apply to the design:

After distilling these insights, we were able to redesign our wireframes to reflect each change. Below is a wireframe from each main flow of our prototype.

Expert Evaluation As our goal was building an accessibility-first solution, I chose expert evaluation to ensure we met expert standards and accessibility requirements. We conducted evaluations with 3 accessibility and product experts who could directly interact and comment on our high-fidelity prototype. I chose this stage to understand areas for final edits before usability tests with users.

In addition to general feedback, we conducted semi-structured heuristic evaluation and gained three recommendations related to specific heuristics. I included this component to gain systematic usability determination in addition to accessibility assessment, helping catch anywhere we potentially failed the 10 usability heuristics.

Heuristic Insights:

After making final edits based on user and expert evaluations, we moved to the final phase—usability testing. I focused on task success rates for key tasks. My goal was confirming that designed features met user needs and were usable and understandable. I narrowed tasks to five key tasks that were part of the main prototype flow and tied back to our three design requirements, ensuring features are introduced clearly for easy toggling, customization and organization are effective and consumable, and overall cognitive strain is reduced.
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We conducted the usability testing with 5 Slack users who were encouraged to communicate their thoughts and decision processes in real-time. This testing was both in-person and remote and moderated with our teams members noting observational qualitative data and administering an end of session survey.
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Before conveying the results of this testing, I want to acknowledge that we worked with a small number of users. While the results to reflect the experiences of our five users, they do not necessarily encapsulate what results may have been with a larger test group. However, taken with a grain of salt, we can see the overall results from our testing, with the users completing the majority of the tasks with success and enjoying the experience of using our prototype.

While our project deliverables were completed with the usability testing, my team and I decided to share our project at one more level. We were able to get in contact with the UX Director and VP of Design at Slack who both had positive comments to share and wanted to talk further about our work on this project. Additionally, almost right as we finished up, Slack rolled out an update that was actually really aligned with our findings and research, dedicated to more focus and productivity. This was a great, affirming end to our work and I am grateful for the learning experiences and opportunities to build an accessibility-first redesign of a platform I continue to use frequently.

This project supported me to grow and learn so much as a team member and UX Researcher. If I had to encapsulate everything I learned in this project to five main insights, this is what I would like to share: