One lesson I’ve learned from my previous experience is that “Think Big first, think Small second”. So in this case study, I am going to apply the “Dimond” philosophy on each stage to spread out ideas first and then narrow them down.

Pandemic has forced a great number of people to work remotely and heavily rely on virtual meetings for nearly all types of tasks. On one hand, employees have more meetings on their calendars to cover various communications, including free chats, 1-on-1 sessions, team outings. On the other hand, remote collaboration also undermines teammates' perception of each other’s mental conditions, such as fatigue, depression, and anxiety. As a result, the work-life balance is being significantly damaged by overwhelming meetings.

Even with the topic settled, “Meeting Time Management” still sounds like a vague idea. So I started thinking about what it is vs what it isn’t to further specify the scope.

From the last stage, I’ve created a brief idea based on my assumptions. Now, it’s time to dive deeper into user research and validate these assumptions with user feedback. I had a casual interview with my wife, who is using zoom for hosting and participating in meetings. Here is what I found from our conversation.

It's undeniable that “One single solution won’t solve all problems”. At this step, I was to trying to figure out a clearer section among the full spectrum that the potential solution could be applied to. According to my research, users' perception and reaction will be largely infected by meeting size and form.

With persona and scenario anchored, I decided to take one step further and explore where are the opportunities that I can improve the current experience of meeting time management.

To create a seamless user experience, the ideal solution should be like:

With all research findings concluded, I am trying to assign a clearer definition and mission to my solution “Zoom Timeline”.

By far, I have set up a general vision for my solution. Now it’s time to dive a little bit deeper to clarify the user workflow.

To design a robust solution, I am trying to map out the system hierarchy to clarify “What to include” and “How different components connect”.

At this moment, I’ve acquired enough confidence to transform all research insights into actionable solutions. Now it’s time to depict the blueprint for our design.

Instead of creating every piece from scratch, I want to make sure that this new feature would be able to fit into the existing design system seamlessly. As the first step, I tried to consolidate the general design language and principles by summarizing Zoom’s design foundation such as color, shape, space, component, etc.

With all efforts above, I am ready to present the final solutions by telling a complete story.

No design is perfect. Limited by time and resources, I was unable to include all the details into consideration. At the very end of this case study, I’d like to share some thoughts of how I would possibly polish this project in the future.