Time
June 2022-Sep 2022
Type
Design Exercise
My Role
UI/UX Designer
Zoom Whiteboard is Zoom’s new feature, aiming at letting the users to collaborate whenever and wherever they want. Pin and Sort are new twin features in sorting out information on the Zoom whiteboard to increase efficiency.
Why Redesign the Zoom Whiteboard?
I wanted to improve the efficiency of whiteboard usage by optimizing the minimum whiteboard features. (creating minimal changes with great impact.)
During the pandemic, more and more people are getting caught up in the zoom era, and collaboration and innovation in zoom are becoming more and more necessary. However, Zoom whiteboard, Zoom's collaboration tool, has many problems that impact users ability to collaborate efficiently.
So what is the conclusion?
Fine...
Pay attention to me guys!
Sorry, don't have laptop now... will join later
What's your contribution?
What are you talking now?
Can somebody sync me?
Challenge
How can I sort out contents
in a messy Zoom whiteboard?
Solution: Twin Features for the Zoom Whiteboard
Feature 1
Pin as you like,
clutter becomes clear at a glance
You can multiselect different items to pin them together or click and drag over an area to select the desired information. You can also drop a pin in a place without defining the area.
You can zoom in and out of the whiteboard to see all the pins and where they are located. Click on a pin in the list to quickly locate it.
Feature 2
Sort as you like,
Sort Users, dates, differentiate all information
You can choose to sort by creator's name or by date.
Once selected, the contents will be highlighted and annotated with names or dates; the unselected contents will be grayed.
Twin Features’ Use Cases
Miro/Figjam is not
the best choice for everyone
Why not just use Miro?
I see lots of people use Miro or Figjam to branstorm.
The answer is, however, Miro/Figjam are not the best tools for everyone.
Miro/Figjam have a variety of functions that can meet many demands, but also are complex and difficult to understand. They are also mostly used by young people in the tech industry and not very friendly to other types of users. They would be too overwhelming for many Zoom users.
Whiteboard is meant to contain ideas, and I want to create a relaxed feeling for all Zoom users to let ideas flow freely, so I don't want complicated collaborative software to prevent some people from expressing their ideas. I want the features to be free, simple, and easy on Zoom Whiteboard.
The age distribution for Zoom and other main whiteboard products(using Miro and Figjam for example) are different, about 50% of the Zoom users are 35+
Root causes of whiteboard chaos
A user interview was conducted and focused on 10 interviewees with different jobs who had used Zoom whiteboard before, either at high or low frequencies.
*The names of the interviewers have been processed. All names in the case are pseudonyms.
Hard to find important information at a glance
Different people are contributing content at the same time in the same place
“We can’t collaborate successfully on whiteboard when someone is not using a laptop”
Jerry, architect
“When too many people are using whiteboard, it becomes chaotic and I start losing myself”
Gavin, student
“I need to spend extra time after class to write docs for the whiteboard content to get everyone on the same page”
Devon, teacher
Personas: Hosts and Attendee
Through collecting and analyzing user characteristics, I found that the users can be divided into two groups:
Host
Tired and Distracted
Pain points:
-
Need to expend effort to pay attention to who is zoning out
-
Need to take time in sorting messy content into a special doc after the meeting
Attendee
Hard to follow and participate
Pain points:
-
Can only participate in the brainstorming via laptop or tablets
-
If absent from a meeting, it’s hard to catch up with others
Principles and Constraints
End users who aren’t used to virtual whiteboard
From previous iterations of zoom, I learned that based on zoom's large user base, its new features needed to be simple to understand and not as complex as other whiteboard features
A less structured whiteboard instead of forcing a structure
Whiteboard should be limitless to ensure the freedom to think as you wish
Work within Zoom’s existing interface
Make sure my features are practical from the perspective of Zoom
Inspiration from the physical world
When thinking about features, I tried to put myself in the shoes of zoom users. Since users come from different industries, many of them are not deep Internet users or in the tech industry, I wanted to derive my features from things that are familiar to people in their lives.
1
PIN
I associate it with the detective who, after collecting a lot of trivial clues, will use pin + sticky notes to classify and locate different clues, thus making the whole clue board from clutter to order
This also leads to my first function:
PIN: Define information actively
Host
Let's pin out different sections for today's meeting and the takeaway for John!
Attendee
Sure! I'll help you.
Step 1: Create a pin
Web: cursor becomes a pin
Web: click to create a pin /
drag a checkbox to create a pin
Mobile: enter pin mode
Mobile: Long press to create a pin/
drag a checkbox to create a pin
*The content of whiteboard has been lightened to highlight the feature.
Step 2: Change the pin color
Web: click "more" to change the pin color
Mobile: press "more" to change the pin color
Step 3: Check the pins, locate a pin
Web: zoom in and out to see all the pins
Web: click a pin to locate
Mobile: pinch with two fingers to see all pins
Mobile: click a pin to locate
2
Sort
In daily life, we will organize the different styles, seasons, and types of clothes in our closets into different categories.
In our context, sorting means coloring specific contributors or specific dates while greying the others. It’s another way to sort information out. Sort works in combination with the pin feature to efficiently sort information. Pin focuses on the meaning of the information, sort focuses on the type of information.
Highlight contents by clicking the creator's name or the date created
Thoughts and Findings
Less is more
This redesign was very rewarding for me, because I imagined myself as a Zoom designer and put myself in the actual development experience to do a relatively simplistic and practical design. I tried to solve a problem with the simplest solution possible. I want my solution to be small in cost and quick to implement and test.
Contextual design
Contextual design is a good starting point, especially for users who do not use Internet in depth. I enjoy experimenting with contextual design because I believe that design always comes from life.