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Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

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Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#21

Post by drannex »

luddep wrote: post #20
drannex wrote: post #16

Is this mac only? Are there plans for PC, Desktop, apps? The website /feels/ very mac-centric which is why I am assuming and that feels like a disastrous mistake if its the case.

(I work at Quill.) We're on all platforms! Can't have a team chat app unless the entire team is able to use it :)

Fantastic - you should make this a bit more clear as it feels very apple oriented,

Throw this under the 'Professional Messaging' with something like 'Cross Platform': 'Works on all your favorite tools - your browser, Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS.'

Otherwise, this just feels like an apple garden app.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#22

Post by ahuang »

me551ah wrote: post #15
luddep wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Quill.) Everything in Quill is a thread -- which is quite a big shift from an IRC-like firehose (even with optional threading.) We've found the shift to have threading by default creates a behavior where you opt into just the conversations you care about, and don't have to skim through hundreds of messages to find what's relevant (or, say, replies to an earlier conversation.) May be hard to get across the…

IRC is very different from teams. IRC is a public server and each channel could have 100s of members which leads to an unmanageable firehose. Are you sure the same problem is also applicable to teams which are going to be much smaller than an irc channel and wouldn't be as busy as IRC? A private channel with a subset of team members wouldn't be the same as a public irc channel.

(I work at Quill). We've found threading to work really well with teams as small as 3. (2, probably not.) In professional contexts, conversations tend to be about specific topics -- someone posts a GitHub issue, bug report, feature discussion, etc, vs say a more social conversation that is less structured.

It's a way to keep track of the conversations you're having instead of a stream of consciousness (with multiple conversations interleaved) that is often times what people find in a channel. Once you shift to using threads, you sort of unlock a lot of things: revisiting old conversations via search, restarting conversations becomes trivial (all the context is right there!), managing your notifications (per conversation instead of per message now), quickly catching up on what you missed vs. sifting through hundreds of messages.

We're mostly solving for teams bigger than 3, but, we think it's really important that it does scale down to small teams.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#25

Post by drcongo »

On top of my own company's, I'm constantly signed in to 21 Slack workspaces mostly belonging to clients, and the endless notifications are starting to become a real problem, particularly when people use @channel or @here all the time. Add into that the Slack's notification sounds are some of the most grating noises to hit my ears since Skype's. If I'm concentrating on a complex task and Slack starts going off I come very close to throwing my laptop out the window.

In short, I hope you succeed in solving this.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#26

Post by atonse »

luddep wrote: post #13
atonse wrote: post #6

Am I missing something here? It talks about focus but has an extremely busy UI with colors and icons in your face all the time. Maybe it's better to actually use it than see the screenshots?

(I work at Quill.) Everything in Quill is a thread -- which is quite a big shift from an IRC-like firehose (even with optional threading.) We've found the shift to have threading by default creates a behavior where you opt into just the conversations you care about, and don't have to skim through hundreds of messages to find what's relevant (or, say, replies to an earlier conversation.) May be hard to get across the…

Thanks for clarifying. Maybe I'm just cranky today (very likely – Old Man Yells At Cloud), but I'd love to see a black and white subdued mode for emoticons as a user preference, it would help with the stimulation if focus is one of the central tenets of this product.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#27

Post by basch »

luddep wrote: post #13
atonse wrote: post #6

Am I missing something here? It talks about focus but has an extremely busy UI with colors and icons in your face all the time. Maybe it's better to actually use it than see the screenshots?

(I work at Quill.) Everything in Quill is a thread -- which is quite a big shift from an IRC-like firehose (even with optional threading.) We've found the shift to have threading by default creates a behavior where you opt into just the conversations you care about, and don't have to skim through hundreds of messages to find what's relevant (or, say, replies to an earlier conversation.) May be hard to get across the…

Do you have a sort of demo room you could post to HN that allowed people to play with the interface without signing up?

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#28

Post by JangoSteve »

luddep wrote: post #13
atonse wrote: post #6

Am I missing something here? It talks about focus but has an extremely busy UI with colors and icons in your face all the time. Maybe it's better to actually use it than see the screenshots?

(I work at Quill.) Everything in Quill is a thread -- which is quite a big shift from an IRC-like firehose (even with optional threading.) We've found the shift to have threading by default creates a behavior where you opt into just the conversations you care about, and don't have to skim through hundreds of messages to find what's relevant (or, say, replies to an earlier conversation.) May be hard to get across the…

What you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, but I think the OP's comment still has valid insight. The point about the in-your-face bright colors all over the place could be addressed as easily as muting down the colors of the tags that you're not subscribed to. You could click the tags you want to subscribe to, which would instantly brighten them.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#29

Post by tobych »

I am, it seems, in the market for this. But...

I don't want to be alerted unless something is important and urgent. I was taught at college to use that distinction.[1]

Not seeing the word "urgent" in the copy on the front page made me think the authors don't appreciate this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower...

At the risk of sounding like that bloke who wrote about how he wants to be playing offense, not defense, when it comes to communication, this is what I tell people I work with:

Important/Urgent: Call me or come find me

Important/Not Urgent: Tell me when we next talk, or email me

Unimportant/Urgent: Hover by my desk, or message me. If I'm not dealing with more important things, I might see it in time.

Unimportant/Not Urgent: Bring it up when we next see each other, or email me.

The only things I want making a noise and interrupting me is calls on my phone, the doorbell, my egg-timer and my smoke alarm.

Re: Show HN: Quill – Messaging for teams that focus

#30

Post by lancesells »

drcongo wrote: post #25

On top of my own company's, I'm constantly signed in to 21 Slack workspaces mostly belonging to clients, and the endless notifications are starting to become a real problem, particularly when people use @channel or @here all the time. Add into that the Slack's notification sounds are some of the most grating noises to hit my ears since Skype's. If I'm concentrating on a complex task and Slack starts going off I come…

Turn off sounds and notifications?
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