The rise of digitalization has led to a plethora of workspace applications that have bombarded users with a myriad of features, each competing for their attention. And with a mountain of tools on every employee’s plate, multi-tasking has become a common occurrence that everyone simply needs to navigate. However, this constant app and context switching comes with a heavy cost, and it’s killing productivity.
According to a joint study by Catalog and Cornell, on average, it takes people nine and a half minutes to get back into a productive workflow after switching between digital apps. This might not sound like a significant amount of time, but when factoring in the number of times individuals switch between apps, the lost time quickly adds up.
In addition, 45% of employees attest that context-switching is the primary factor that contributes to counterproductivity. This is because every time someone switches between tasks or apps, they need to readjust their mindset, which leads to a loss of focus, decreased motivation, and increased stress. The brain is wired to work best when individuals can focus on one thing at a time, and switching between tasks goes against this natural rhythm. Moreover, 43% of people say switching between tasks causes fatigue. This is because every time someone switches tasks, their brain needs to use more energy to adjust to the new task, leading to cognitive overload and exhaustion. This can also have a significant impact on mental health, causing feelings of overwhelm and burnout.
This is where Ply comes in. This no-code customization platform recently developed and launched a contextual tool that allows users to create and add features inside or on top of their existing apps so they don’t have to switch apps and contexts just to perform a task. “If there’s an app that does what you wanted to do, it’s always better than building custom. It’s faster, it will work better, and it will take care of the edge cases better.” says Yaniv Tross, Co-Founder and CEO of Ply.
The One-App-Wonder Enabler
Ply utilizes workflows to construct user-facing features. Its range of capabilities encompasses functions such as shortcut features, the transmission of Gmail messages as Slack messages, conversion of emails into support tickets on top of established customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as Zendesk or Intercom, retrieval of data from other applications, introduction creations, the inclusion of emails into task lists, as well as more advanced features like refund requests. What’s more, the tool operates in two layers: the first is the location of the button on the screen, while the second refers to the data that users can access once they have added a feature within that specific context.
According to its Co-Founders, Ply was created because many no-code tools are not being used to their full potential, which yields unnecessary app switching. CEO Yaniv Tross, COO Zohar Sakal, and CTO Guy Schlider realized that the best way to maximize the potential of no-code technology is to customize existing apps instead of creating new ones. Ply offers a solution that is faster, more user-friendly, and allows for easier editing and sharing within an organization.
By enabling users to work within the applications they already have, Ply eliminates the need to switch between different apps, resulting in a seamless and collaborative experience. “We think 80% of what you need software to do, you’ll find an app that does it amazingly. But for the rest of the 20% where your organization is a bit different than everything else, then that’s where Ply comes in. So instead of you building yet another tool with all the functionality that’s already out there, just take the tool that you already use and add the missing pieces,” Yaniv concludes.
