Led product vision, architecture and design. Defined the MVP (minimum viable product) - which led to a fully staffed team. Read what Wired wrote about Clips!
Introduction
Zoom is a video conferencing platform allowing users to connect online for video meetings, webinars and live chat. As hybrid work has increasingly become the standard in a post-pandemic world, Zoom’s direction moved towards more collaborative products
Problem
While Zoom Meetings allowed for Cloud recordings, there was not an easy way to share shorter Clips meant for asynchronous communication.
Goal
To create a feature which allows for quick video sharing and screen-recording outside of a meeting
My role
Led product and design effort as first team member (and only team member for first 3 months)
Define design and engineering needs for MVP and post MVP
Defined product placement across the Zoom platform
UX Summary
What is the experience? To summarize:
Use cases
While working on Clips, there was an existential question on “why Clips?” More specificially - what is the difference between a Clip and a Cloud recording (a recording of a Zoom Meeting)
Missed meetings
Recordings: entry point inside a meeting
Assume users will use to record multiple participant meetings
Assume recordings are meant for a “missed” event rather than a form of communication
Meant as a form of spectating event
Assume users will use video
Async meetings
Async video: entry point of the recorder is external to the meeting
Assume user will use smaller clips for messaging communication
Assume users will want additional integrations (chat, email, etc)
Assume users will usually use screen share and video
Knowledge share
Broad knowledge sharing: entry point is external to the meeting
Assume recorded event is meant for spectating
Assume broad sharing
Assume users will usually use screen share and video
Clip's identity
Zoom's clips would solve for the use cases of 2 and 3, while Meeting's and it's recordings solve for use case 1.
Clip's prototype
Prototype of MVP experience
Watch and engage
Showing the video with comments
Library
Clips within the zoom client
Feedback
Tested the feature internally. Feedback came back in the form of a chat channel. Overall the feedback was positive:
OMG I LOVE CLIPS
Hi team - I just used clips for the first time. Love it!! I use it all the time. I used to do it with Loom...
Wow - very impressed with the first version of Clips, great work everyone.
Constructive criticism
While the overall user experience was positive, there were requests on some improvements
Sharing was defaulted to private - this was not intuitive as the main use case was to immediately share the Clip. The clip could not be viewed unless permissions were changed
Due to technical requirements - video settings were split between the Meeting’s video settings and the Clips video settings. This caused some confusion to users, especially around background noise suppression
Other users requested more customization with the Clips including custom thumbnail uploading and other video customizations
Media reception
Take a look at what the media has written about it!
Solutions
While Zoom Meetings allowed for Cloud recordings, there was not an easy way to share shorter Clips meant for asynchronous communication.
Outcome
To create a feature which allows for quick video sharing and screen-recording outside of a meeting