Zoom’s Private Messaging Experience
2022 / Product Design, User Experience Design
As a Zoom conference event host and facilitator, I ran into a privacy issue and concern with Zoom’s chat feed. During an event that I was hosting, a meeting attendee sent me a message that Zoom marked with red text that stated, “privately”. Despite the label, I was not entirely sure who could see this message and whether or not anyone else could see any private messages I sent in return. The textual and colored label did not reinforce that the message was private, since this private message was mixed in with Zoom’s public messages. This created a perceptual contradiction.
Before & After
Perception of Privacy
Zoom’s private messages lacked the perception of privacy. Digital experiences are extensions of our physical experiences. In our physical reality, we rely on our sensory inputs to understand and communicate with the world around us.
What Does Privacy Look Like?
To get a visual understanding of how privacy extends into our physical experience, I gathered a variety of images that illustrate ways in which we perceive and understand privacy. I searched the following keywords, which came from a mind map I created around the central word, privacy.
Keywords
Privacy
Hidden
Visibility
Boundaries
Fences
Confidentiality
Breach
Proposed Solution