Webex Teams is a cloud-based mobile app that allows for collaboration through group messaging, videoconferencing, whiteboarding, file sharing, and more. The application is part of Cisco System’s collaboration portfolio.

I chose this application for my mobile app design project. We were asked to improve an existing feature on our application of choice. As a current employee of Cisco who uses Webex Teams in my day-to-day life, I thought this would be a great opportunity to find ways to improve the app. 

Role: Personal Project

Tools:  Figma, InVision, Pen & paper

Platform: Mobile App Redesign

Timeline: 4 weeks

Background

Webex Teams is doing a lot to expand its offerings during COVID-19, but there are opportunities for improving existing features that would help users who are relying on Webex Teams for communication during remote work. 

The Webex Teams application is used by most if not all employees to communicate with their coworkers and collaborate. The Teams mobile application specifically is used as an instant messaging tool to quickly and conveniently chat with teammates about projects. 

Initial Assumptions 

• Webex Teams users use the mobile application to effectively communicate and relay information 

• Webex Teams mobile app is most useful when users are away from their desks/laptops

• Users use the app to mainly communicate 1:1 with a teammate or with a group through the “spaces” feature 

Understanding the Problem Space

In order to discover the problem, I set out to learn as much as possible about the current user experience with a few research goals in mind:

1. What is the current experience of using the app like?

2. What is the market like and what do competitors offer? 

3. What goals, motivations, and frustrations do users have?

Objectives

1) Research to identify target users and problem space

2) Assess Webex Team’s current mobile app

3) Prioritize design solutions to ultimately redesign Webex Teams mobile application

Competitive Analysis 

Assessing Webex Team’s competitors & their offerings was key to identifying opportunities for differentiation and improvement. I performed a competitive analysis of other collaboration products including Microsoft Teams and Slack. 

User Surveys

I started my user research by sending out a survey to existing users of the Webex Teams Mobile Application to understand what motivations, desires, and frustration they had when using the app. 

I created a survey containing 18 questions (a mixture of multiple choice and short response questions) using “Google Surveys” and had 11 people respond. Here are some of the results I accumulated:

In-depth interviews 

To address our initial questions, I decided to conduct 1:1 interviews with other users of Webex Teams. I used LinkedIn to get my message out there and ended up conducting interviews with 6 people. Here is what they had to say about their experience:

*Note: Names were changed for privacy. Images are stock photos.

Going through the Reviews

As part of my research, I also looked through reviews on the App Store. There weren’t that many reviews (300+) so I only found a few relevant reviews. I also went through some reviews of the competing apps to know their best features, attracting and retaining their users, and even the ones they missed out.

Biases from Research 

Once I had finished compiling the data from surveys, interviews, and reviews, I realized that there was selection bias on my part. All the participants that I recruited for my research were people that used the Webex Teams app every day for work. They knew the app inside out to some degree and were not representative of the overall target user population which included folks using other competitor apps. To eliminate this bias, I decided to recruit users that have never used Webex Teams and were not familiar with the app.

Pinpointing Pain Points - Usability Testing 

In order to figure out the main pain points we should be tackling in the redesign, we conducted a usability test where we had 5 participants who have never used Webex Teams to partake in a series of tasks.

Some of the tasks that I gave them during the testing were: 

• Open the app and send a message 

• Reply to a message that was sent to you 

• Navigate to notifications and turn on notifications 

• Use the search feature to search for a document that you sent through Webex Teams

• Find the “Spaces” feature and create a space 

Analyzing the Research

After compiling all the data from the research, here are my main takeaways: 

1. Almost all the participants used the app with the desire to effectively communicate and relay information quickly and easily with their teammates.

2. Most participants felt that the app made it easy to stay connected to their team especially when they were away from their laptops.

3. Users expressed frustration at the lack of customization options for notifications and want a personalized experience based on their preferences. 

4. The “Spaces” feature seemed to be hidden in the current app and did not encourage massive group channels/discussions. 

5. Participants found it hard to keep track of threads and replies that become side conversations in a chat 

Redesigning the Webex Teams Experience 

Taking into account everything I had learned from the surveys, interviews, usability studies, and reviews, I created an affinity diagram to organize key insights, pinpoint problem areas, and locate opportunities for changes to occur. 

I categorized all of the pain points into 2 main areas that could be improved upon for this iteration: 

1. Lack of personalization -- give users the option to customize their meeting view and notifications based on their individual needs & schedules.

2. Lack of visibility -- Users had a hard time keeping track of replies to their messages and mentions. 

Proposed Solutions

Personalizing your Webex Teams experience by your own rules

Users are able to customize their notification settings based on their individual schedules. You get to personalize your experience by your own rules.

Improved visibility into the messages that matter 

Users are able to see messages that pertain to them. Filter your mentions and see the messages that matter to you.