Carets stayed
Changing them meant new permissions.
IA +
Re-design
Zoom’s first full redesign in a decade: new navigation, visual hierarchy and meeting UI for a product 300M+ people use every day.
- Company
- Zoom
- Role
- Lead Product Designer
- Focus
- IA · Design systems
300M+
people a day, across every role: admins, hosts, participants
every device, phones to car screens to Zoom Rooms.
The problem
Ten years of features, one cluttered toolbar.
Up to 23 buttons plus a More menu. Hosts trying to leave ended the meeting for everyone 40% of the time.
Discovery + research
Two weeks to understand it.
Week 1
Research and discovery
- Competitive analysis across Meet, Teams, GoTo and Webex
- A taxonomy of our own patterns
Week 2
Connecting with users
From novice to power user, the goal was to validate and rank what was actually broken.
20user interviews
Top problems we heard
Confusing, cluttered navigation
Too many distractions create tunnel vision
The system
Usage data decided where every button lives.
- Must haves stay visible
- Often needed is one tap away
- Nice to haves move into a cleaner More menu
TIER 2Often neededUsed in over 30% of meetings. Usually grouped in More, with exceptions like Chat and React kept in the toolbar when speed matters.Chat · Captions · React · ShareTIER 2Often neededUsed in over 30% of meetings. Usually grouped in More, with exceptions like Chat and React kept in the toolbar when speed matters.Chat · Captions · React · ShareTIER 3Nice to haveUsed in under 30% of meetings. Lives in More, grouped by context.Docs · Notes · AI Companion · Record · WhiteboardsTIER 2Often neededUsed in over 30% of meetings. Usually grouped in More, with exceptions like Chat and React kept in the toolbar when speed matters.Chat · Captions · React · ShareTIER 3Nice to haveUsed in under 30% of meetings. Lives in More, grouped by context.Docs · Notes · AI Companion · Record · WhiteboardsTIER 3Nice to haveUsed in under 30% of meetings. Lives in More, grouped by context.Docs · Notes · AI Companion · Record · Whiteboards
TIER 1Must-havesUsed in over 60% of meetings. Always in the main toolbar.Audio · Video · Participants · More · EndTIER 1Must-havesUsed in over 60% of meetings. Always in the main toolbar.Audio · Video · Participants · More · EndTIER 1Must-havesUsed in over 60% of meetings. Always in the main toolbar.Audio · Video · Participants · More · EndTIER 2Often neededUsed in over 30% of meetings. Usually grouped in More, with exceptions like Chat and React kept in the toolbar when speed matters.Chat · Captions · React · ShareTIER 2Often neededUsed in over 30% of meetings. Usually grouped in More, with exceptions like Chat and React kept in the toolbar when speed matters.Chat · Captions · React · Share
Explore + design
20+ directions to one calm toolbar.
The best direction was the least surprising one. People kept the layout they knew, usage data decided what stayed up front, and End stopped being the scariest button on screen.
Shipping
Smart cuts for a hard launch.
The launch date was Zoom’s annual conference, so every cut had to earn its place. We gave up a few ideals to hold the date, and customization made up the difference.
Tier 3 stayed in the main toolbar
Out, then back in at the last minute.
Micro-animations cut
Too risky for our tech stack.
What shipped
Personalized navigation
Drag-and-drop customization was the big win against clutter. People choose what lives in their toolbar, and the rest moves into More.
Mobile
One toolbar system, from desktop to phone.
The same tiers carried over to mobile. Core controls stay in the bottom bar, and everything else lives in half sheets sized for one thumb.
The result
30%
lift in customer satisfaction in three months, with almost no complaints. A quietly raging success.
“The line icons in the latest version of Zoom are so clean and nice.”
What I took away
Thorough doesn’t have to mean slow.
We didn’t ship everything we proposed, but the tier system, drag-and-drop capabilities and new patterns gave every team after us solid ground to build on.