Zoom From a Teacher’s Perspective
April 2021, Janice Cheng with Charissa Ho, Suzy Park and Tian Shi
According to Zoom Blog in 2020, over 125,000 schools in 25 countries have migrated to teaching remotely on the platform since the Covid-19 outbreak.
It turns out that operating an online classroom requires high-level multi-tasking. Teachers regularly monitor Zoom chats and other classroom engagement tools while screen-sharing and lecturing. As one teacher put it, “It feels more like a classroom management tool rather than a communication tool at this point.”
How might we make it easier for teachers to better engage their classrooms in a virtual environment constrained by a physical monitor screen and limited visibility of students?
Project Timeline
This was a team project completed over a 3-week period following a modified d.school design process. I worked with designers Charissa Ho, Suzy Park and Tian Shi. My roles were focused on user research, survey design and usability testing.
Problem Discovery
User Research
We kicked off the design process by recruiting 6 users for initial interviews. Our users were full-time Zoom teachers with an average class size of 30 adult students aged 20-35.
From here, we sketched a persona that we called Steve.
The User Journey
Steve represents our typical user demographic who has recently migrated to teaching on Zoom due to Covid-19 conditions. He uses one monitor screen to engage with students while screen-sharing his lecture materials.
Fig 1. User journey highlights user goals and frustrations while screen-sharing in class
Like most Zoom teachers, Steve takes special time before class to set up his monitor space. He takes particular care to open the Zoom chat in advance and make sure that the window application is positioned in a way that he can see the messages roll in.
Unfortunately, chat isn’t the best way to engage with student questions and participation. It can quickly become hard to keep focused on lecturing when student discussions get lively. Steve has tried other question engagement tools like Zoom Polling, but that requires even more management than his usual spontaneous style of teaching can permit.
Problem Space
What we found was that frequent class interruptions stem from limited opportunities for teacher-student engagement.
We uncovered 3 major pain points surrounding limited monitor space, chat engagement and distraction, and the need for casual polling in the classroom.
1. Limited Monitor Space
The figure below is a representation of the Zoom teacher’s monitor when lecturing. The teacher needs to successfully monitor the classroom chat while focusing on the lecture presentation, which can require a lot of visual attention.
2. Chat Engagement & Distraction
Secondly, since visibility of students is limited on Zoom, teachers lean on chats as a sign of learning engagement. But keeping up and filtering though messages in class can be distracting, as not every message is meant for the teacher.
3. Reactions Polling
Thirdly, with popularization of corporate instant messaging tools like Slack, “emoji-polling” has become a new trend used by teachers to quickly collect responses or gauge the sentiment of a room, as shown in the image below.
“Emoji-polling” has become a new trend used by teachers to quickly collect responses or gauge the sentiment of a room.
Although Zoom has an in-built polling function, 87% of teachers reported in an online survey that they avoided Zoom Polling because it was inconvenient. Instead, teachers preferred to use Zoom Reactions or Slack to achieve quick polling with reactions.
Definitions
Task Analysis
Next, we performed task analyses to understand possible solutions and limitations within existing Zoom features.
Polling Ambivalence
Our online survey about reactions and polling on Zoom found mixed messages. Teachers organically use Reactions during class, express desire to use it more, but in reality are prevented by usability concerns.
Fading Reactions
Interviews revealed that teachers can’t effectively use Reactions for polling because the emojis typically fade after 10 seconds, making it difficult to count when classes are large.
Toolbar Accessibility
In addition, the current toolbar when screen sharing doesn’t allow easy access to either Reactions or Chats. Teachers need to click in “more” — an action that is easily missed.
Iterative Process
We went on to block-level wireframing, checking in with user testing at every stage. Our aim was to help teachers to engage students better with enhanced chat and polling options.
The sweet spot between visibility & distraction
We explored ways to enhance visibility of student engagement in the chat feature, looking at disappearing messages and message preview options.
User feedback revealed that some teachers would lose their train of thought when tempted to read chat message previews, resulting in more class interruptions.
We opted for a more discrete notification, with message preview available on hover.
Giving the ownership of questions back to students
Next, we designed a Q&A filter tab based on an existing feature in Zoom Webinar. We wanted to lift the burden of chat management off of teachers by giving ownership back to students.
Students can now flag questions directly in the chat box as they arise. Flagged posts will auto-migrate to the Q&A tab, where teachers can easily address student concerns.
Final Solutions
Finally, we addressed teachers’ need to gauge room sentiment by introducing an integrated polling system using Zoom’s Reactions tool.
Quick Poll Feature
With a new Quick Poll feature, teachers can easily begin a poll directly using the Reactions tool, which is now accessible from the toolbar when screen sharing.
Discrete Notifications
Students receive a notification letting them know that a Quick Poll is in progress. They will be prompted to submit an emoji reaction in response to a prompt given verbally by the teacher.
Automatic Tallying
Student results are automatically tallied live on the teachers’ screen. Teachers can easily end Quick Poll and clear results by clicking “End Poll.” Students can also see poll results.
Let’s follow our teacher’s new happy path, available as a high-fidelity prototype for both Web Client and Zoom Mobile.
Desktop Client Prototype
Zoom Mobile Prototype
Thanks for reading!
Still curious? See it through different eyes on Behance.