Case Studies
Journey of designing a meetings product that is sensitive to your context and removes the grunt work from meetings

Before the pandemic, video conferencing was limited to companies and organizations with the budget to purchase and install expensive hardware and software. Video calls usually took place in a business-like environment, as there were technical and quality issues that needed to be considered beforehand. There were also usability concerns due to incompatible formats, different operating systems, and unreliable connections.

However, the rise of COVID-19 changed everything. As people stayed home, businesses had no choice but to rely on remote solutions like video conferencing to stay connected with their employees and customers.

This translated into greater demand for video conferencing services such as Zoom, Webex, Skype, and Google Hangouts as well as an influx of new users.

Companies have invested heavily in advanced technologies such as virtual backgrounds and noise cancellation algorithms which allow for smoother, more efficient online meetings than ever before.

Furthermore, cloud services have enabled scalability so that large groups can join from any location without needing expensive infrastructure or hardware setup.

All this has resulted in a world where video conferencing is no longer just for companies but for everyone - whether it's a family reunion or a long-distance business meeting - making it one of the most important tools of our current era.

This case study is geared at showing how engagement spanning multiple years and pivots impacts design strategy and decision-making. This will be divided into two parts. The direction before the pandemic and after.

Understanding Meetings

In his article for Forbes, Harmon Cullinan looks at the benefits of using face-to-face communication instead of email for business decisions. He argues that although emails are quicker and easier to read, face-to-face meetings are more effective for discussing complex issues as they allow for direct dialogue

and identifying hidden feelings. Face-to-face interactions also foster trust between colleagues and make it easier to keep track of commitments and deadlines. Cullinan concludes by acknowledging that while emails have their advantages, a combination of both could be the best option in certain instances.

In this article, Harvard Business Review contributor Joseph Lampel examines how businesses can better manage their most precious asset: time. He outlines five strategies that leaders can use to ensure they are making the most of their time, such as setting realistic goals, delegating appropriately, learning to prioritize tasks, and proactively managing meetings and conversations.

Lampel also encourages leaders to allocate some "thinking" or "reflection" time in their schedules so they can reflect on their decisions and learn from their mistakes. Lastly, he emphasizes that taking regular breaks is essential for being productive.

Research and Findings

The study involved 1:1 interviewing, Participatory research and observation. The primary conclusions of the research were the following

People felt they spent a lot of time just getting the tools to work properly. Setup, usage, and reliability were a big concern as they ate into the meeting time

Tracking and capturing meeting content was unreliable and relied too much on human effort. This ended up needing more meetings to get better alignment

Following through and managing action items from the meeting was a challenge. It was hard to get everyone on the same page as the tools were disconnected.

People always joined from different contexts, It was tough for people to be able to communicate and collaborate reliably. Thay had to repeat the same message over multiple mediums to ensure work got done

I’ve worked with Anurag for 5+ years, his leadership, design knowledge and product execution are incredibly hard to replicate. He is gifted!

Krishna Yarlagadda, CEO

Workflows & Sketches

We set out to map the entire journey and experience of the user. This involved multiple systems that interacted with each other to get to a common location. The workflows helped us understand the "how" of the system being built for the user.

Screen Design

We set out to map the entire journey and experience of the user. This involved multiple systems that interacted with each other to get to a common location. The workflows helped us understand the "how" of the system being built for the user.

This phase had wireframing and Visual Design. Here, we explored the functionality of each screen in-depth and went over multiple iterations with the team. The challenge was to build a cohesive across various form factors and plan for various contexts in which they will be used. Namely, dial-in, conference room, desk, phone, watch, in-car among others.

If you were in the conference room, you had access to other peripherals with which the app needed to work, if you were joining from your car, it had to be ready for one-handed usability, and each design needed to be context-sensitive.

The pandemic changed the game

From a world that was heavily focused on meeting in person, everything that was built needed to be thrown away as the world moved fully remote. Huddl had to completely redo its business model. This was unprecedented and nobody know how long it would take for the world to return to normalcy or that it ever would return.

As a designer, I had to step up and contribute to the overall change in strategy. We started talking to a lot of our users and spent time understanding the shift in user behaviour. People felt a great deal of fatigue as they were having too many meetings and were getting very little done

From a world that was heavily focused on meeting in person, everything It became evident that the core of the problem that plagued meetings was the following

People didn't spend enough time preparing for meetings. The best way to do it was over siloed presentations on email threads. This needed to change

While in the meeting, they had to juggle between tools to get the relevant data from their enterprise workflows

Sharing, capturing, and tracking was always a disconnected task and it lead to a lot of things being missed. It was hard to go back, understand what was said, and track outcomes across meetings.

Since the pandemic, the product direction was influenced to solve for

Create a space to prepare for meetings

Allow seamless in-meeting note-taking experience, and the ability to push and pull data from enterprise tools without ever having to leave the meeting

Enable a quick summarization and recap experience and automatically push updates to all participants who are a part of the meeting to ensure there is alignment.

Enable both async and sync use cases to work in the ever-changing remote and hybrid work settings.

Today, due to critical design decisions Huddl is on a path to build the next-generation meeting productivity tool that works with any video conferencing provider enabling the organization's journeys to achieve greatness.