Slack’s Subtle Redesign Aims to Make Users Feel Less Overwhelmed

The Slack sidebar is getting an update, but you’re forgiven if you haven’t noticed.

Slack began rolling out the changes last Wednesday without fanfare, but it will take a few weeks to kick in for everyone. The new look is supposed to help users feel less overwhelmed, a frequent complaint heard by the ubiquitous workplace communications platform. Notification badges on the sidebar are now white instead of red, some extraneous icons are gone and there are more notification sounds to choose from. Overall, though, it doesn’t look much different.