Redesign zoom through immersive meeting environment and integrated functions
Group Project
Design Challenge
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Hongke Zhao
Xue Ai
08/2022
-09/2022
Figma
FigJam
After the pandemic, people have become accustomed to working from home. However, many people feel isolated during the process, leading to fatigue, social disconnection, and reduced work efficiency.
Zoom has introduced an immersive view feature to address this challenge, but it's essentially an enhanced virtual background, limited in its environments, participant capacity, etc, leaving it somewhat inflexible. Furthermore, its awareness among users remains low. This led me to my initial idea:
We designed Zoom Space, a new feature in Zoom that creates digital spaces for the distributed team to make virtual interactions more human, providing chances to build connections and work efficiently.
Moving freely in the Zoom space, walking in and out of conversations feels natural and seamless. Say goodbye to meeting fatigue and hello to an energized team.
A variety of online events provide a chance and create a sense of belonging.
Build a connected and productive team with interactive objects like an improved whiteboard function.
I first looked into the market, trying to find inspirations and gaps among existing products:
All the platforms aim to create a virtual workspace with a more immersive and human meeting experience. However, only Topia and Gather enable users to explore the spaces freely. Most of the platforms still limit user activities within the given space similar to Zoom. Can we increase engagement and participation of the online meeting?
To quickly understand whether this is a problem worth solving, we decided to conduct semi-structured interviews with people around us about their experience using Zoom, and invited them to try the other virtual meeting platforms and offer feedback.To better draw insight from our interview, we divide the meeting into three stages: before the meeting, during the meeting and after the meeting, and summarize the pain points and opportunity area of each stage
We summarized the research and defined the user needs to guide the design process.
Based on the user needs and the gaps in existing products, I summarized the higher level goals I hope to achieve with the redesign.
Create a virtual space for users to move freely and interact with others both in and out of a meeting
Host various events in a virtual space as an alternative of offline events and provide networking opportunities
Build in improved functions such as the whiteboard to make the team more connected and productive
Having understood the design goals, I started brainstorming and developing ideas that can help me achieve these goals. Eventually, we decided three variations:
Users can move horizontally in one scene, switch among different scenes through the map, and click the icon to interact with functions
The virtual avatar can walk around in digital spaces customized by users, which simulate the different spaces of the real office scene
The virtual avatar can walk around in digital spaces customized by users, which simulate the different spaces of the real office scene
We did three variations of the low-fidelity prototypes for the usability tests in order to scope the potential of the variations and prepare for the refinement design later.
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√ The perspective is more comprehensible
× When moving horizontally, there will be conflicts with the function icon and human interaction
√ Simulating office environment is interesting
× some people find the customization features cumbersome. × The top view is a little incomprehensible
√ The movable avatar is more interesting compared with current one
× they hope to have a more interesting scene and more interaction with other people
Based on the feedback from the low-fidelity prototype, we decided to continue with the concept of simulating the offline office environment. We changed the planar scene into an axial form, making the space look more interesting and easier to understand. We also removed the function of customization to make it more convenient to use.
We decided to put the entrance of the Zoom Space function on the home page, which is convenient for people to enter, while keeping the traditional meeting mode for users to choose.
We divided the functions into basic functions and meeting functions, and the meeting functions can only be displayed in the meeting.
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Then we focused on the Event function. The initial concept is to place both Meeting and Event under the Calendar function. Users can view or join both the meeting and the event they are signed in the form of calendar, they can also click on the blank time slot on the to add a new meeting or event. We quickly completed the following prototype for user feedback.
Through the user test, we found that putting Meeting and Event under the same function complicates the use process. Because when people create a new meeting, they often use the default information to start meeting quickly, but for events, more detailed descriptions and banners are needed to attract participants. Based on this, we separated the conference and event functions.
At the same time, most users said that the form of the calendar is a bit too much information, and it looks different from other functions we designed, so we unified the form into a right column that is consistent with other functions
According to user feedback, we have iterated the event function as follows. Users can browse signed events, explore more event, and create new events.
First of all, let’s review the feedback on Zoom’s existing functions obtained in semi-structured interviews. Most of their negative comments were related with the whiteboard function, as following:
· It is not easy to find the the whiteboard function when first use
· Users can only sketch simple things, which doesn’t meet the needs of sharing various forms of files in meetings
· Unable to find who is drawing what on the huge board, especially when there are many participants
· Annotation and whiteboards disappear when screen sharing ends
· The contents can only be saved in forms that can’s be edited again(png, pdf)
· Saved images can be difficult to find
In response to the above pain points, we designed the prototype. The whiteboard is embedded into the zoom space function and has the following features:
#1 The created files will be stored and displayed on the whiteboard page for subsequent use and editing
#2 Other files can be embedded easily into the whiteboard to facilitate discussion and annotation during meetings
#3 Make it easy to locate where others are working on, therefore assisting communication and cooperation
After completing the initial prototyping, we conducted user test. In general, and users were satisfied with three features of the new whiteboard function, and offered the main feedback:
Most users said that the whiteboard window space is too small, so we changed it to full screen display. Users click on the whiteboard in the conference room to interact and come to the full-screen interface, as if they were actually in front of the whiteboard for discussion.
At the same time, we changed the menu bar to the right side to be consistent with the rest of the functions.
Based on the feedback from the user testing, we iterated and modified some details, such as the types of files that can be embedded, etc., and got the final design.
This is my first time redesigning an existing product with a large user base and adding a new feature to it. It made me think deeply about how new features can provide a new experience without causing a sense of separation from other functions. Because even if Zoom Space is really put into use, the current meeting mode will still be used for a long time. In this case, keeping some functions consistent can make users feel familiar, and it also encourages users to try and accept new functions.
Due to limited time, we only provide users with one virtual space in the existing final design. In the early interviews, we got some negative comments from users on customization, saying that too many options sometimes makes people feel burdened. If having more time, I would like to design more interesting spaces for users to choose, or think about ways to make customization more convenient.
