Webex Heads Up

My client for Webex wanted to know, ‘how do we make video meetings more productive’? After exploring various solutions, my team settled on a system for discretely alerting meeting participants of common disruptions to help meetings stay on track.

My Role

I actively participated in all project stages, focusing on Figma prototype development as the sole builder for the final hi-fi prototype. Additionally, I served as the client liaison, ensuring smooth communication between my team and the client. My weekly slide updates kept the client informed of our progress.

Scope	Final Client Capstone
My Role	User Research, Info. Architecture, Prototyping, Presentation
Time constraints	10 Weeks
Tags	App Feature Design, Video Conferencing

The Problem

User Problem

The client tasked us with designing a solution to address user fatigue from excessive video meetings. How might we enhance Webex meetings, making them more productive?

Business Opportunity

Helping users stay engaged during meetings could provide Webex with a competitive advantage in the enterprise video meetings market.

Stakeholder Overview

The Client – Webex

We designed a solution for Webex, a video conferencing app by Cisco, which targets the enterprise market.

The User – Knowledge workers

Webex users, mainly remote enterprise employees, experienced a substantial surge in remote meetings during the pandemic, and this trend is expected to continue.

Design Process

1. User research

By analyzing survey data on video meeting users from a Webex-sponsored study, combined with insights from our interviews with six enterprise-level knowledge workers, we identified key motivations and pain points.

Motivations

User motivation to participate is reduced in remote meetings.
Users yearn for that ‘human’ element when collaborating or getting to know new meeting participants.
Non-verbal forms of communication help users stay engaged.

Pain Points

Meeting interference makes meetings less productive and increases meeting fatigue.
Users are ‘blind’ to chat when screen-sharing/presenting

49% emphasized the need for features to reduce home office distractions for more effective remote collaboration, highlighting the pain point that meeting interference makes meetings less productive.

2. Empathy/Affinity map

We synthesized our key insights from User Research into empathy and affinity maps to identify recurring patterns among the most common concepts.

3. Brainstorming w/ matrix

Based on patterns identified in our mapping phases, we brainstormed features to address Webex’s issue of user meeting fatigue. After charting them on a matrix, we identified solutions with the least effort and maximum business value:

Post-meeting summary bot
Advanced AI Timer
Icebreaker Activities
Meeting Agendas

4. Sketching

We sketched out these top concepts to visually explore their viability in alleviating meeting fatigue.

5. User flow

Among our sketched concepts, we identified the meeting pain-points alert feature as the most effective tool in keeping participants engaged in meetings. It empowers users to notify fellow participants of disruptions, helping the meeting get back on track.

6. Wireframing & Usability testing

Using our User Flows as a reference, we built two versions of lo-fi wireframes to A/B test with 8 participants in usability testing to see which version was most effective at getting meetings back on track. Our A/B tests sought to answer key questions:

Question 1

Should alert senders be able to send alerts anonymously?

Alerts should be anonymous, as the sender’s identity doesn’t expedite issue resolution.

Question 2

Should the notification include an alert sender count when multiple participants are alerting the same disruptor about an issue during a meeting?

Exclude the participant count from notifications, as it does not hasten the recipient’s resolution of the disruption.

Final Recommendation

I developed the final prototype using Cisco’s Material Design system, ensuring visual consistency with existing products and incorporating insights from usability testing. Key features of the final prototype include:

Participants can send alerts to communicate various issues to disruptors, facilitating effective communication and quick resolution. Supported alerts include:
- Hot mic
- Muted mic
- Distracting background
- Video disabled
- Wrong screen share

When choosing a recipient for an alert, the app lists only those participants likely causing the issue. E.g., in a hot mic situation, only users with active microphones are shown. This allows senders to quickly address the disruption without having to sift through all participants.

Most alerts let recipients resolve disruptions directly from the notification popover. E.g., in a hot mic scenario, they can mute directly from the popover, eliminating the need to find the mute button on the control bar.