Co-authored: Jor Amster and Gaz Rk

Zooming during a stochastic change like the pandemic has forced a paradigm shift in how we interact socially and work while unintended consequences like fatigue, stress, exhaustion, and burnout are being raised.

According to The Verge, Zoom usage surged from 10 million daily participants in December 2019 to 300 million in April 2020. The tremendous increase in volume indicates the service is being strongly vetted by its users.

What used to be a mere side dish to our daily diet of face to face interactions and a supplementary tool for remote communications has now become the entree.

In addition, recent articles suggest social scientists believe the fatigue and stress experienced in using the platform could be due to the rapid adoption of the technology. As humans, we need time to assimilate and adjust to any new advancements or service. Acclimation is required just as one must do prior to climbing Mt. Everest by spending time at the base camp. It may be that the users of Zoom collectively are experiencing altitude sickness in the struggle to adapt.

There is an urgent need to maximize the use of Zoom to its full benefit. The current challenge is the ability to manage our time effectively while utilizing this tool, still deliver work outputs, and protect our sanity.

As product people, we are constantly thinking from the users’ perspective and their pain points. Frustrations of this product are being amplified. We have some ideas on how to alleviate the stress and discomfort from a product improvement angle.

The underlying purpose of Zoom is to be a tool to facilitate the most basic human elements — Communication, Connection, and Social Interactions. All of this via a screen and a camera. Meetings, catching up, conferences, classes or workshops, family reunions, birthday parties, and even graduations are now exclusively virtual.

Zooming adds idiosyncrasies that arise and cause dissonance of social cues. Poor bandwidth creates delays. Lack of uniformity in camera quality affects the ability to synchronize interactions while trying to maintain natural eye contact. The tool requires the user to continuously multitask by forcing simultaneous focus on the conversation, the chat window, and a grid of participants on the call. All this and the feeling of never-ending meetings… we have a perfect recipe for a disaster!

With the original idea of a contrivance to our regular interactions, Zoom has a very generic approach to the format. Contextually, the user is floating in what feels like a huge body of water — an ocean. It is hard to get one’s bearings. What is needed are familiar landmarks or landscapes. The other pain point is the inefficiency and waste with the inordinate time spent by users, especially new ones, on technically interfacing with the service and software.

The answer, we believe, is looking at other analogous experiences such as spreadsheets or presentation software that have supporting themes and features. Templates guide the user. These preformatted themes bring familiarity with frequently used functions and assist in navigation as well. The adoption and comfort of the tool are faster and seamless.

The templates can function as a virtual moderator running the meeting. Different themes would replace current Zoom sessions with pre-configured layouts for 1-on-1s, 3 to many attendees, a briefing, catching up, presentations, and others. The idea would be to allow the meeting organizer to input their agenda and choose a format for the session.

Possible variables could be the number of attendees, agenda, and time limit for the meeting based on the topics. The virtual moderator will set up, schedule, contact, manage, facilitate, capture action items, and record for post review, documenting, and tracking. In a sense, many of the rudimentary facilitation and technical finesse is taken care of, producing a more comfortable meeting experience.

One apparent key issue is privacy and security. These are fair concerns and the recent problems Zoom has experienced mean that this is not a subject to be taken lightly. Encryption and other cutting edge security features must be better integrated into the product.

The haphazard structure for Zoom meetings needs to be quashed. When meetings are disorganized and attendees do not feel connected they will get bored. Participation does not translate to contribution. In fact, it is merely an illusion of productivity. A construct with scheduling assistance, targeted participants, and focused time-limit dashboards will allow for more succinct and effective meetings.

In roadmapping this feature the program could incorporate ML to learn and improve these features. Curation or customization of templates to fit a specific user or organization’s needs can also be integrated into the offering. The result would be a more structured and socially stimulating tool for virtual meetings and interaction.