Zoom
Table of contents
1. Overview
Product
Online video and audio conferencing platform..
Role
Research and designer
Goal
Design an experience to enable users to visualize time spent in meetings and nudge them with healthy tips to reduce Zoom Fatigue.
Timeline
3 weeks (November 5th – 25th)
Tools
We read six (6) articles on the causes of fatigue and what energized users during virtual meetings.
- Causes of fatigue
- People talking over each other, and background noise
- Only two people talking for the majority of the meeting
- Poor connection/delay in audio leads to mistrust
- Lack of social cues of when it’s someone’s turn to speak.
- Impossible to maintain eye contact
- Users worry about their appearance
- Ways to increase energy
- Walkaround if the meeting can be audio-only
- Users can be casual and in a comfortable setting
- Ability to disconnect/leave when you need to
- Mutual gaze/eye contact
- Schedule downtime between meetings
- Face to face meetings
2.1 Survey
We sent out 10 question survey to understand user habits and meeting frequency.
What we learned
- Most documents are shared during the meeting are presentations (e.g., PowerPoint)
- Users use the join by phone/audio only feature
- Meetings agendas are sometimes shared before the meeting
- Users often have back to back virtual meetings
- Avg. meeting times are between 30 mins and 1 hour
- The majority of users spend more than 10+ hours on virtual meetings.
2.2 Competitor analysis
To understand the platforms users schedule, set up, and join virtual meetings, we explored Zoom, BlueJeans, and Macro’s current interface design.
2.3 Affinity Mapping
We used affinity mapping to discover and organize patterns from our research.
We organized anecdotes into pain points, benefits, tools, and increased or decreased energy. Then, we took all the pain points and refined them into categories defined by root cause (e.g., technology enables, limitations, human needs, and human errors.)
3. Plan and define
3.1 Problem statement
Meeting attendees struggle to maintain energy and focus as the number of virtual meetings increases during a week. Our solution should provide a meeting structure while minimizing distractions to increase the attendee’s energy levels.
3.2 Brainstorm solutions
We focused on the last level of affinity mapping to think of solutions to problems. Again, the two themes were meeting structure and distractions. 
3.3 Feature prioritization
To prioritize our feature set, we used the RICE method (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort). Prioritizing enabled us to focus on features with the highest impact balanced with the time to develop the said feature.
The exercise resulted in selecting the following solutions:
Healthy nudges
- Auto mute (noise-canceling)
- Prevent people from talking over each other
- Simplify Zoom invite
- Audio call handoff/call forwarding
- Meeting debrief
Visualize time spent
- Countdown timer before breaks
- Redesign schedule view
- Meeting agenda/topics
- Commenting feature but for questions (e.g., Facebook live)
3.4 User flows
We mapped the Zoom workflow to understand user options, inputs, and output.
4. Design
4.1 Crazy 8’s
We sketched each feature’s look with a minute timer before proceeding with high-fidelity designs.
4.2 Inspiration
We searched Dribbble.com to look for new ways and mental models to organize Zoom’s new dashboard redesign.
4.3 Design system
We created a system to save time designing new screens and ensuring consistent designs.
4.4 Designs
4.5 Prototype
5. Lessons learned
We started without planning, resulting in no time to test our designs with users. If we had an additional opportunity, we would define a schedule that aligns with the project’s goals to allocate adequate time if given another chance.
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