Problem Statement: The current state of online meetings has become less enjoyable and is afflicted by various challenges, including issues arising from participants' diverse backgrounds, time zone disparities, and language differences.
Our team decided to use Design Thinking method to understand users, research the problem and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. We delivered high fidelity prototype of the platform to provide a high level of engagement and efficiency.
My role: UX Designer
Other team members: Project Manager, UX Writer, Visual Designer
Duration: 8 months
My responsibilities: conducting user interviews, analysing data, creating user personas, customer journey map, designing low-fi and mid-fi wireframes, organising and co-leading workshops.
Outcome: High-fidelity prototype and implementation strategy for the first 3 months.
Me, presenting at Facebook office in Zurich
Our team
At the early phase of the project, I conducted user interviews in order to get a better understanding of the problem and be able to move further by working with the results of these interviews.
Our group conducted 10 interviews in total.
After sessions on interviews, we gathered with the team together to analyse all the information and put it all together.
From the data gathered during the interviews, we successfully categorised it into four distinct groups of shared aspects: issues, frequency, meeting objectives, and the tools employed to facilitate these meetings.
Using the interview data, we organised a workshop to develop personas, resulting in the creation of two distinct profiles. These personas played a pivotal role in guiding our project and keeping in view the previously identified challenges. Our team ultimately chose to prioritise Busy Bob due to his budgetary capacity, making him more likely to subscribe to and financially support the platform.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of our users' needs, we identified touchpoints or pain points at every phase of the meeting process. This process consists of three stages: pre-meeting (involving participant selection, agenda creation, and scheduling), the meeting itself, and post-meeting activities (which cover meeting conclusions and feedback).
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the online meeting process, we developed a Customer Journey Map. While we initially divided the meeting into three steps, in this section, we've broken down this process into five stages to enable a more detailed examination of each touchpoint. The complete journey map is displayed below, and in the subsequent sections, I will provide a thorough explanation of each phase on the map.
1. Create a meeting
This initial stage marks the inception of the entire meeting process. Here, the user selects meeting participants, formulates an agenda, and prepares documents for the meeting. The organiser experiences a mix of emotions during this phase, including excitement about preparations and engaging with others, but also feelings of frustration and confusion. This confusion arises from the challenges of selecting the right individuals with suitable backgrounds for the meeting and finding a suitable date that accommodates everyone's schedules.
Ideas about how to solve the problems:
1) Get all the contacts from official libraries like LinkedIn or another one to be able to understand the occupation role of every participant.
2) Create the registration form for participants where you can double-check their role to verify if this is the right person for this meeting.
3) Share the goal of the meeting for everybody so in this way, everybody will know about what this meeting is going to be.
4) Share all the documents that will be required during the meeting.
2. Dealing with contacts and start of the meeting
This stage of the meeting provides a more comprehensive view of the entire process. The organiser has already sent out invitations for the meeting and knows who will be attending, but there can still be some challenges. For instance, there may be issues if some participants arrive late or if someone forgets about the meeting altogether.
Ideas about how to solve the problems:
1) Create a reminder of the meeting (some pop-up message several minutes before the meeting or some another possibility to remind about the meeting).
2) Possibility to add this meeting to your calendar (like Google calendar, Outlook and etc).
3) Do the check-in possibility for participants.
3. Points of the meeting
As the meeting is already in progress, the organiser may start to feel that the most challenging part is behind them, and they can relax. However, a new challenge arises during this phase, which is maintaining participant engagement. Meetings can extend for an hour or even longer, making it challenging to sustain the participants' attention.
Ideas about how to solve the problems:
1) To be able to understand the reaction of your participant for some idea or statement, you can use emojis to show their level of attention and comprehension of the information.
2) If you need to get some decision made, you can start the voting (poll) process that was prepared earlier for participants, so in this way, they can show their opinion about the topics or questions.
4 and 5. Conclusion and post-meeting stages
These two stages can have two scenarios. In the first scenario, the organiser receives reactions and feedback from participants, allowing them to manage the direction of the meeting. This feedback may lead to a successful deal closure or the scheduling of further appointments. In this situation, the organiser feels relieved, as they have achieved the meeting's goal, whether it's sealing the deal or progressing towards that objective.
On another hand, in the second scenario, the organiser may experience stress because they do not receive any positive outcomes from participants. They come to the realisation that they might not be able to close the deal or are losing their audience's engagement.
Ideas about how to solve the problems:
1) Increase interaction with voting: To enhance participant involvement, provide more opportunities for voting on statements or decisions during the meeting. This interactive approach can boost engagement and allow participants to feel more actively involved in the discussion.
2) Display agenda and key points: Keep the meeting agenda and key discussion points visible on the screen throughout the meeting. This visual aid helps maintain participants' focus and serves as a guide, ensuring everyone stays on track and aligned with the meeting's objectives.
3) Post meeting engagement analysis: After the meeting concludes, the organiser can review a graphical representation of engagement metrics. This analysis should include the level of voting, the quantity of emoji reactions, and comments made during the meeting. By studying this data, organisers can identify areas for improvement and enhance the meeting structure for future sessions.
Our team presented the project in public and based on the user’s feedback, our project has great potential. We delivered a clear, user-friendly platform that will help the organiser to concentrate more on the context of the meeting than on organising it.
It was a challenge since it was the first time that all my teammates and I were working remotely. I have learned how to trust my teammates and how to share the tasks that need to be done.
This project showed that customers need a platform that will take the stress of organising meetings away and provide a great user experience thanks to clear design and content. I am looking forward to learning more about the Design Thinking approach.
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