Zoom
Team Chat IA redesign

Overhauling and modernizing the core chat canvas in Zoom’s enterprise chat product

ROLE

  • Lead designer

  • UX research & strategy

  • Information architecture

  • Design system contributor

DOMAIN

  • Desktop, web and mobile

  • Enterprise tools

  • Chat and async collaboration

  • Third party integration frameworks

IMPACT

  • Defined an entirely new information architecture to address user top pain points as well as giving the product and business room to grow

  • Team chat can now offer a fully competitive alternative to the most popular established enterprise communication tools (e.g. Slack and Microsoft Teams)

WORK ＞ ZOOM TEAM CHAT IA REDESIGN

Zoom Team Chat

While Zoom is best known for it’s easy to use meetings experience, Zoom Workplace includes Team Chat: a fully featured enterprise chat and async collaboration tool.

Starting point

The original design for the main chat canvas was reasonably simple but lacked hierarchy which made it difficult to scale as new features and capabilities were added.

Additionally the experience was quite convoluted to use, particularly finding shared artifacts (presentations, files, images, videos etc), relying on a right pane filled with expandable sections leading to modal list views.

Competitor patterns

Useful patterns exploited in other products (e.g. Slack and Microsoft Teams) to consider:

Split view

Useful multitasking - working together while chatting

Pinned content / tabs

Shared sense of purpose

Discovery

“We’re never really multitasking, we’re only doing one thing at a time. We're just task switching a lot…”

Prototype explorations (1)

First iteration(s) explored and tested, trying to find the right balance of flexibility and simplicity.

Initial vision pitch

Prototype explorations (2)

Second iteration(s), simplified to the most impactful updates, tabs and split view.

The options that resonated with people the most: (a) split view with resources part of the split vs (b) resources as a tab - the option that won in the end.

Option A - resources in the split view

Option B - resources as a tab

Applying the system to mobile

Outcomes and learnings

  • Zoom Team Chat now has a robust, competitive and scaleable IA, with room to grow and a system in place to keep enhancing async collaboration.

  • Built valuable partnerships with internal teams collaborate on more impactful integrations with chat and asynchronous productivity in general.

  • Unique challenges and learning experience pitching big changes to leadership and iterating on a large, multi-release design vision driven piece of work in a fast moving evolving platform.