Summary

In this case study, I focused on enhancing the Zoom Whiteboard experience within Zoom Rooms to solve the critical problem of content integration and saving. Zoom Whiteboard is a digital canvas for real-time collaboration, allowing users to brainstorm, sketch, and annotate ideas seamlessly. However, users were restricted to accessing Zoom Whiteboards primarily from desktops, significantly reducing their usage potential in hybrid environments.

Additionally, Zoom Rooms, designed as flexible workspaces for hybrid teams, operated as standalone entities without the ability to connect to individual Zoom accounts. This limitation prevented users from saving or retrieving content created on Zoom Rooms Whiteboards, leading to potential loss of important data.

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Duration

12 weeks

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Visual Context

This case study describes the adaptation and challenges of bringing Zoom Whiteboard to Zoom Rooms devices. The design outcomes will only focus on the Zoom Rooms Touch devices, which is represented as the main screen in these example layouts below ↓↓↓

Problem

1. Users cannot access Zoom Whiteboards from Zoom Rooms; they are restricted to using them only on desktops. This limitation significantly reduces the potential for broader adoption and usage of Zoom Whiteboards across different environments.
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2. Zoom Rooms operate as standalone entities without the ability to connect to individual Zoom accounts. As a result, users cannot save or retrieve content created on a Zoom Rooms Whiteboard, leading to potential loss of important data.
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Solution

1. Enhance Zoom Whiteboard Compatibility in Zoom Rooms: Implement an optimized and adaptive version of Zoom Whiteboard for Zoom Rooms, allowing users to fully collaborate and edit whiteboards using medium-to-large touch devices in hybrid environments.

2. Enable Account Integration with Zoom Rooms: Create a seamless method for users to connect their Zoom accounts to Zoom Rooms devices. This will allow users to save their whiteboards and access them later, ensuring no loss of important content created during meetings.

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Approach

I worked closely with my PM and engineering manager to fully understand all the unique qualities of Zoom Rooms, and all the initial technical constraints that have already been identified through testing.

🤖 Different operating systems- There are several types of Zoom Rooms devices, such as Zoom Rooms for Touch, non-touch Zoom Room displays with a touch controller, companion Zoom Room, standalone Zoom Room; as well as different operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, and Android.

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🖥️ Operating system touch limitations - UI layouts, structures and touch capabilities vary depending on the device type, some UI patterns that are possible on one device type may not be possible on the other type.
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💾 Saving the whiteboard and accessing it later - Whiteboards can be created in conference rooms, but they exist temporarily. There is no way for a person to save any of the content created on a Whiteboard in a Zoom Room.

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Challenges

My team and I had outlined all the use cases and scenarios for Whiteboards being used in Zoom Rooms, but there were many complications along the process:

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🗣️ Lack of team alignment- While design and PM teams would align on the design, engineering had a lot of pushback and would offer several alternative solutions.

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🌐 International collaboration- Developer team was based primarily in APAC regions, often was a language barrier and miscommunication with design specs.

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🏋️ Huge workload, strict deadline- There are many Zoom Rooms device types and sizes, and only one of me.

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☝️ Touch capabilities and consistency- Due to the differing operating systems, not all touch gestures could be applied to all devices.

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✨ Unique product, new concepts- Had to deal with a lot of ambiguity, seeing that there were no similar products that had the same technical constraints or feature capabilities.
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Design Hypothesis

By implementing an optimized Zoom Whiteboard experience in Zoom Rooms, allowing users to fully collaborate, edit, and save whiteboards directly to their Zoom accounts, we will increase product engagement and monthly average usage. This enhanced flexibility will enable users to access and interact with Zoom Whiteboards across various devices and environments.

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Design Outcomes

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Hybrid Collaboration in a Zoom Rooms Meeting

How did I design for several OS systems, patterns, and limitations?*

I collaborated closely with the engineering team, learned and audited what was possible vs not possible for all OS devices. Ultimately, I created basic touch gesture specifications and put a pause on more advanced gestures.

• Participants who are joining a meeting from a Zoom Room can open a whiteboard at any point, and edit it with a touch screen device.
• Remote meeting participants (that are not in the room) can also edit and collaborate on the same whiteboard from wherever they are.
• Zoom Rooms participants and remote participants see all changes in real time.

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Ability to Save the Whiteboard

Why is this important?*

Zoom Rooms devices exist as their own entity. When whiteboards are created in a Zoom Room, they are temporary, since the room doesn't belong to a specific person or Zoom account. For Zoom Rooms, the first step was to allow users to collaborate and edit a whiteboard, using the large, physical touch-screen hardware available. The next step was to allow Zoom Rooms users to be able to access this whiteboard beyond the room, if the user wanted to.

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Reflections‍‍

This was a challenging project that had a lot of technical constraints and compromises. It was hard to simplify an experience with a lot of guardrails, and I would have preferred to test and validate this design instead of going live and learning from customer feedback.

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Results

• Monthly average use of whiteboard increased for Zoom Rooms
• Evaluating customer feedback post-launch for further improvements