Zoom Pod User Experience Research
HCDE 313 Class Project
Methods: Field Study, User Interviews, Surveys
Timeline: March -June 2024
Tools: FigJam, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms
What are Zoom Pods?
They are private soundproof booths that were introduced to UW libraries as buildings began to reopen in 2021. They are designed to accommodate students' need for private spaces to take online classes and appointments.
What’s the problem?
As someone who frequently has team meetings online, I’m constantly looking for good places on campus to take Zoom calls. However, while I have used the Zoom pods a few times, they are almost always full when I need to take calls. After talking with other students, I discovered they also had similar experiences. This led me to my research question:
How can we improve the user experience for Zoom pods in the Odegaard Undergraduate Library (OUL) at the University of Washington (UW)?
Developing a Research Question
The decision to focus on improving the user experience surrounding Zoom pods was on both my shared experience with peers and additional research regarding student need for these spaces:
In 2022, over 40% of Washington College students reported that they were enrolled in a distance education course, one that uses technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from their teacher [1, 2].
After the buildings on campus began to reopen in 2021, the UW Libraries stated that students had expressed a need for “individual and quiet space for Zoom classes and online appointments” [3].
Many UW services including academic advising, office hours, counseling sessions, a crisis line for students, and more have online meetings via services such as Zoom. Many of the topics discussed in these meetings may be private or sensitive.
This data supports the idea that UW students need private spaces for online meetings.
Research Process & Methods
This reserach study took place in three consecutive phases: a field study, user interviews, and a survey.
Field Study
I began this study with a field study to understand how users typically interact with the Zoom pods, since their actual behavior may be different from what they report.
Methods
The overall approach to these sessions was a type of observation called Deep Hanging Out, an observation method that utilizes focal points to narrow the focus of the observations. This method is effective because it allowed me to observe participants and their natural behavior.
Focal points refer to the main categories I was focusing on throughout the duration of the study
Data Collection
I conducted three separate one-hour field studies. Observation sessions were held in the OUL and study participants included anyone who accessed or attempted to access a pod during the three sessions.
Data was collected in a Google Doc with a focus on the focal points mentioned above. Immediately after each session concluded, I reorganized my notes to make them easier to read and analyze.
Raw Notes
Clean Notes
Analysis
Once all three sessions were complete and notes had been cleaned up, I divided the collected data into individual ideas on a digital FigJam board. Each idea got its own digital sticky note and was then organized by related behaviors and patterns. By breaking down and organizing the data, I developed a series of insights to inform my recommendations.
Findings
Discussion, Limitations, & Next Steps
From the results, I conclude that while many students use the Zoom pods, there are still many areas for improvement, specifically surrounding their use and availability. Since the use of the pods and user activities are unregulated, the pods have unpredictable availability. However, potential solutions such as creating a reservation system, increasing the number of pods, and conducting further research provide opportunities for improvement.
Limitations:
Due to the nature of the study, we do not know the users' thoughts or intentions that influence their behaviors
The number of sessions as well as the length of each session was limited
Based on the results of this study, during the upcoming interview sessions, I want to explore users’ decision to wear headphones in the pods. As mentioned the pods are designed to be soundproof, however, I observed multiple participants continue to wear them. To properly access user experience, I want to determine if it is user preference, an issue with the pod itself, or another potential pain point. Further, because the Zoom pods are available on a first come first serve basis, I want to explore how this influences user behavior and whether or not it determines how frequently users choose to use Zoom pods. I hypothesize that the waiting periods I observed among users, may be a barrier to use for students, however, that cannot be concluded via this study and would be more effectively explored via interviews.
Interviews
These interviews were conducted to gain deeper insight into the factors influencing student use of the Zoom pods.
While the observations from my field studies offered valuable insights into user behavior, the nature of the deep hanging out field study limited my ability to interact with participants, preventing me from understanding the reasons behind their behavior or their feelings about the experience. To bridge this gap, I conducted interviews that explored the factors influencing UW students’ decisions to use or not use the Zoom pods in the OUL for online meetings.
Methods
The interviews conducted were semi-structured. This style was selected because it allows the interviewer, to ask follow-up questions and encourage participants to elaborate on their responses. This helped to ensure that I collected comprehensive data that was representative of the interviewee's experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Further, using a semi-structured interview style allowed me to deviate slightly from the outlined questions and the question order to better facilitate participant needs and responses relative to their experiences and background.
Participant recruitment was completed through my social network of other current UW students. For the interviews I had specific inclusion criteria.
Three participants were interviewed for this study. The first was a second-year undergraduate studying Environmental Science, the second was a second-year graduate student in the Library Sciences program, and the third was a third-year undergraduate studying Human-Centered Design and Engineering. Interviews were conducted both via Zoom and in person.
Findings
After each interview, I created a transcript using Otter AI, then reviewed and revised it for clarity in Google Docs. I coded the transcripts qualitatively, using the comments feature to mark codes. These codes were then organized on a FigJam board to identify themes. As I analyzed the codes, I added a section to the board to highlight connections across themes and individual codes.
Sample Qualitative Coding from Interview 3 Transcript
Affinity Diagraming for Interviews
Discussion, Limitations, & Next Steps
By conducting semi-structured I was able to probe participants and ask about the factors that influence their use of the pods. The unreliable availability of Zoom pods decreases the ability of students to realistically access the pods and both the location and certain features of the pods decrease user privacy and opportunities for use.
Limitations:
The largest limitation of the interviews was the number of participants. While UW Seattle has approximately 50,000 students, only three were interviewed meaning the findings represent only a small fraction of student opinions and experiences
As I gained more experience interviewing, the length and depth of conversion increased, meaning that the first interview conducted was less comprehensive than the last
Next, I plan to assess the effectiveness of potential solutions through a survey. With a larger participant pool, the survey results will better represent the student body. During recruitment, I discovered many students had never used the Zoom pods, often citing them as consistently full. The survey will explore the extent of this issue and assess whether my recommendations could help students who previously felt unable to access the pods.
Survey
Conducting a field study and interviews, led me to develop a series of recommendations to improve the experience of users, such as creating a reservation system. While these recommendations are based on previous user research, I want to ensure that users find these recommendations effective before using resources to implement them. By surveying a larger group of students, I was able to gather diverse opinions and assess the effectiveness of potential solutions to improve the user experience.
Methods
This survey was conducted via Google Forms. This platform was selected because results can be sorted by individual participant responses. Further, it allows me to restrict who can respond to the survey to only those with a UW email. This will help to ensure that the survey participants meet the inclusion criteria of being current students. The survey ran from Thursday, May 29th through Sunday, June 2nd, garnering 20 total responses. 17 of the 20 participants met the established criteria and their data was analyzed for the results of this survey.
Participants came from 3 main sources including my personal network of other current UW students, UW’s Society of Women Engineers, and the UW women’s club soccer team.
Findings
The survey data was analyzed using Google Sheets. Specifically, data from specific questions was compared to look for patterns, contradictions, and other interesting factors. This was done primarily using pivot tables.
Spreadsheet of Survey Responses
Pivot Table for Need for Private Spaces on Campus & Current Living Situation