"I really like this new feature. The ability to add custom functionality to the Chatter UI opens up a new category of use cases where business process interactions are supported without leaving the Chatter feed. Collaboration really is at the heart of everything."- Mark Cane @ force365

Chatter is the collaboration platform that connects Salesforce users to each other and their company information. For a long time, the only available actions on Chatter were Post message, file and link. In early 2013, there was a big initiative to allow our customers and partners to be able to extend and customize the actions that were available on Chatter.

I was the design lead responsible to design the administrator experience. I worked with stakeholders from 3 different business units as well as other designers, user researchers and developers from 2 separate business units to design this experience. There were a lot of limitations based on timeline and patterns that I had to follow but working closely with developers, I was able to push the limits.

My role: Lead Designer

End-user:

Below is a screenshot of what the administrators have control over to customize the Chatter publisher for their end-users. They would be able to add actions in addition to Post, File and Link as well as being able to create custom actions.

Setup Screens:

Sample list of actions

Drag-and-drop action editor

Adding an action to a page layout

Sample design specification

Sample user flow

Design Goals:

Simple tasks and single steps. Light, easy and quick creation of Salesforce records.
No code. Administrators can create custom actions without writing code.
Don't let complexity in. These are tools for the administrators to create actions and forms. Though limits and on-screen guidance, prevent them from creating inefficiency for their users.