How To Increase Team Communication On Slack Using Good Visuals

Team communication is one crucial factor that every start-up and already successful organization must depend on to facilitate growth. While customers might be the star of every marketing strategy, the heroes behind the scene of each sale are your team members. And if there is lagging communication between your employees, probably due to unavailability or a crisis like the pandemic, the result could be delays in project execution, inappropriate planning, and wrong distribution of resources. 

But thanks to the rapidly evolving technological capabilities, businesses can now organize remote audio calls, video conferences, and digital meetings to aid team communication. At the very least, your employees don’t always have to resume the office for physical meetings when they can actually pick up their mobile tab and hop on a slack video call.

So if you are planning to manage a group of remote workers or you just want to set up multiple communication channels for your team, then slack is one of the best options. However, there are certain things to keep in mind in order to enhance team communication on slack, and that is quality visuals.

Why Visuals?

Talking about visuals, this is where videos, images, infographics, icons, and any other thing that is graphics related comes in. But why do we need good visuals or how does it influence team communication?

Check these stats:

Wow'd by the stats? That’s why visuals are important when it comes to either communicating with your customers or within the team. Moreover, people now prefer in-person communication over textual content which only looks like blocks of lines.

Just imagine if your company members only remember 20% of the entire project document you sent to them. Alternatively, you can simply share an infographic containing every single detail and see how their retention value spikes to 80% or more.

5 Tips To Increase Team Communication On Slack With Good Visuals

The emotion, movement, in-person voice for videos, and realism are all ideal factors that make visual content much more preferable to the conventional text method. So follow the five tips below to increase your team communication on slack with good visuals.

Choose A Non-Disruptive Space For Video Calls

Video call is the most common method of visual communication often used by companies to discuss projects, task progress, and other crucial info. Apps like Slack offer an in-built video feature that enables users to join or create a video room where many others can join in and also leave anytime they want.

With video calls, your team can communicate as though you were all present in person. But there’s a downside that comes with it too. In most cases, video calls provide an avenue for distraction. Imagine hosting a team video and suddenly your cat jumps in or your room door creaks. That’s enough distraction for the whole team and it can interfere with the communication flow.

What about hosting your video call with a surprisingly eye-catching background. You’re more likely to get more comments on how beautiful your background is than how awesome your presentation was.

So to ensure your team communication remains uninterrupted or disturbed by unnecessary factors, do these: 

When engaging with other team members through a live video call, ensure your environment is free of noise and other third-party creakings. That’s why you must use isolated rooms, far away from noisy disturbance. If you work remotely from the comfort of your house, then you should set up a small space that is walled or shielded away from interruptions. And, of course, you can seek out some out-of-house isolated spaces that are far away from where people are usually seen.

If you’re going to be using your personal space or even work office, you need to reduce inanimate distractions such as overly-painted or mural-plated backgrounds. You can use the traditional method where you put a piece of clothing behind to replace the background. Whichever approach you take, just make sure the background is as simple as possible.

Simplicity doesn’t mean scraping your wall clean without any piece of art or decoration. You need to give your environment a bit of spice without disturbing the concentration of other team members. Moreover, visual arts boost creative thinking and that will go a long way for your brainstorming video sessions. So grab your brushes for procreate and create some really cool and printable monochromatic pieces.

Use A Stable Connection And Good Camera

Let's paint a scenario. You were having a video call with your stakeholders and other team members. Suddenly, the light goes off and no one can see or hear you on call because your network is breaking. Now imagine if this lag gets frequent and incessant. Such breaks will lead to disruption in communication and cause your team to lose interest immediately.

So before hopping on a video call, make sure you are connected to a tested and lightning-fast network. Better still, use a private wifi and ensure the bars are completely peaked. If there is a neighborhood wifi that’s faster, use it but be sure to protect your data from hackers with a VPN.

Also, the device you are using matters. The quality of your camera will determine the output of your video calls and how clearly others can see you. You can get a low-cost but high spec camera and attach it to your laptop for facial coverage instead of using your PC’s camera.

Share Only High-Contrast Files On Screen

On-screen sharing is a slack feature that enables team members to share a document for joint viewing during video call. If you are sharing a text-document, maybe a powerpoint text presentation, make sure the content is highly contrasted for easy visibility. Moreso, use medium font-sizes so that those who have eye-defects or mild sight issues can see whatever you sent without straining their eyes.

The same thing applies to sharing images on screen. Ensure the images are magnified enough and clear. If you are sharing an infographic, the texts must be clearly distinguishable from the background images. Your icons must be identifiable and the messages should be easily passed. This ensures the whole team is carried along and not left behind or distracted.

Note that non-video communication can also be impacted by visual elements like static images or progressive infographics. There’s a chat feature on slack for organizations which allows team members to collaborate and share ideas before execution. You can always send image illustrations to depict the company’s plan or summary of past decisions.

Conclusion

As previously mentioned, team communication is essential to any functional organization. And since most important communication on slack occurs visually, you need to do everything that enhances the quality of your visuals.

Use a non-disruptive environment for your video calls or conferences. Check your internet connection for lags and ensure the device you’re using boasts of quality visual output. Lastly, share only high-contrast files on-screen and during non-video communication so that everyone gets the info you’re passing.