Telex

Oct 2, 2024

The Story

In Stage 4 of the HNG Internship, we began working on *Telex*, a real-time notification system. The entire internship cohort was divided into teams, each consisting of product managers, product designers, frontend and backend developers, testers, DevOps engineers, data analysts, and video marketers. We worked on *Telex* from Stage 4 through to Stage 10, with each stage representing different milestones as we built out various parts of the app.

This experience gave me invaluable insight into leadership within design and taught me how to foster collaboration across different roles, creating a cohesive and effective team.

What Telex is

Telex is an application that ensures timely and accurate delivery of notifications for developers and IT teams. Similar to Slack, Telex allows users to organize notifications into different channels, such as new customer sign-ups, customer complaints, and purchases.

Unlike traditional notification systems or monitoring tools, Telex is designed to be the central hub for all app-related events, allowing teams to stay informed and collaborate on issues in real-time. The platform is not intended to be used for general team communication or chat, but rather as a dedicated space for tracking and responding to critical events happening within the user's applications and services.

You can check how telex works here: https://telex.im/

The Problem statement

Managing and monitoring a series of events generated by applications in real time poses a significant challenge for developers. Critical events such as user sign-ups, transactions, and system errors often go unnoticed due to inefficient and fragmented notification systems, leading to delayed responses and compromised application performance.

Telex is designed to address these specific pain points by offering a robust platform designed to deliver real-time notifications for application events. It employs channels to represent distinct applications, empowering users to receive and oversee notifications for diverse app activities seamlessly.

How might we (developers) be up-to-date with key tasks and deliverables?

How might we (The engineering team) track lags, bugs, and quick fixes?

How might we ensure in-app communication with direct teams and sub-teams (sub-channel)?

How might we (the product team) ensure adherence to methodologies and quality benchmarks?

How might designated teams get designated prompts - “Machine to user”?

The Product Goal

Telex being a real-time notification system is designed for developers and technical professionals to monitor critical elements such as servers, databases, and cloud infrastructure. It provides instant alerts on logs, downtime, and other activities on a user’s platform. The system aims to streamline the process of infrastructure monitoring, offering real-time insights and a notification channel where users can collaborate, discuss issues, and receive alerts via a webhook integrated with their applications.

The Research

The research phase for Telex focused on identifying the challenges faced by developers and system administrators in monitoring server performance and infrastructure health. User surveys, interviews, and industry research helped reveal that many professionals were looking for a more interactive and streamlined system to monitor multiple platforms in real time. There was also a need for better team communication, especially in moments of critical downtime or system issues. These findings drove the design of the notification channel and chat integration, ensuring Telex catered to the specific needs of its technical audience.

The Target audience

The primary users of Telex are developers, system administrators, and technical professionals working with servers, cloud infrastructure, and databases. These users rely on real-time alerts and logs to maintain platform stability, minimize downtime, and troubleshoot issues as soon as they arise. They value speed, precision, and detailed insights, as well as the ability to communicate quickly with team members when incidents occur.

The Design architecture

The architecture of Telex was built to support real-time data handling, notification alerts, and chat functionality. The system architecture was designed with flexibility in mind, allowing users to integrate their platforms via webhooks to receive alerts directly into the app.

Key Components:

Webhook Integration: Facilitates the connection between a user’s platform and Telex, ensuring that notifications are sent in real time.

Notification Channels: Allows users to receive and monitor alerts, with the ability to customize notification preferences based on criticality.

Chat Feature: Enables team members to discuss issues, share insights, and respond to notifications within the same platform.

Monitoring Dashboard: Provides a visual overview of system health, including server status, database performance, and downtime metrics.

My Role

In the development of Telex, I played a key role in designing the Channel Management system, a critical component that ensures all notifications are seamlessly organized and tracked within the platform. My primary focus was on creating an intuitive and efficient interface that allows users to easily manage and monitor notifications in real-time. By categorizing notifications into distinct channels, such as new customer sign-ups, complaints, and purchases, I enabled teams to stay informed and respond promptly to critical events. The design emphasized clarity, usability, and the ability to customize channels to meet the specific needs of IT and development teams, ensuring that Telex serves as a central hub for all app-related notifications.