Zoom
Avatars
Problems
No humanoid avatars were originally available, only animal avatars.
Users had no ability to create, save, or modify avatars.
Existing avatars did not fully represent users and were not professional for business oriented meetings
Goals
Users needed a way to participate in an engaging way when in meetings that don't require an active video feed.
Presenters need a better feedback alternative to profile pictures and user initials in a meeting audience.
Give users a more private experience for joining a meeting.
Solutions
Offer customizable human avatar alternatives that have characteristics that can be configured individually.
Allow the capability of saving, duplicating and editing previously created avatars for future use.
Easily enable avatars from the join flow or from within an active meeting.
Role
Lead product designer
Lead product researcher
Devices
desktop, mobile, tablet
web as well as desktop app
Research
Internal interviews
Prototype usability testing
Internal feedback
Success metrics
Increased engagement with avatars
Expanding the scope of
avatar capabilities
Zoom avatars started with only animal options, leaving users without customizable, human-like choices. This raised inclusivity concerns and didn’t support individualistic identities in a meeting. A more dynamic alternative to static images or user initials was beneficial to presenting to a more engaging audience while giving participants another option for more professional privacy.
Design explorations
Given that a foundational avatar system already existed, our goal was to integrate seamlessly into the established patterns while introducing a new avatar builder experience from scratch.
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Customization Approach: Users manually selected from 23 characteristics to create their avatar.
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Iterative Refinements: The primary UX flow remained consistent, but we iterated on the range and variety of avatar characteristics to ensure greater inclusivity and usability.
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Prototyping & Testing: A functional prototype was created to test the usability of the builder.
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Decision Criteria: The final design needed to be inclusive, legally compliant, and enjoyable to use.
DEI & legal partnership
Given the sensitivities around representation, we collaborated closely with DEI and legal teams to ensure fairness and avoid potential biases. Key considerations included:
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Balanced defaults: Mid-range values were used for skin tones, body shapes, and gender expression to avoid favoring any one standard.
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Distinct but non-photorealistic avatars: To prevent legal concerns regarding likeness rights, avatars were designed to look unique but not identical to the user.
These decisions ensured that our avatar system was representative without reinforcing stereotypes and avoided legal complications surrounding personal likeness usage.
Conversations with 3rd parties
As part of a broader strategic initiative, Zoom explored collaboration with Meta’s avatar platform.
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Corporate Agreement: Zoom and Meta's CEOs agreed to explore a partnership.
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Challenges: The conflicting goals of each experience, legal constraints, and extra user consent requirements in non-intuitive moments in the flow complicated the integration process.
Scaling design with small steps
At launch, the initial release focused on a manual avatar builder with full customization capabilities.
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Users could select from 23 characteristics to build their avatar.
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Avatar customization was available on desktop and mobile for both pre-meeting setup and live modifications.
Problems that still remained to be solved:
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Human avatar creation was very manual and click heavy.
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Users had to engage with all 23 characteristics to build a humanoid avatar.
Success metrics
While no formal engagement data was collected, anecdotal feedback from internal teams and early users was positive, highlighting:
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Increased excitement about human-style avatars and more of an appetite for further enhancements.
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Resounding positive feedback for presenters to larger audiences with limited speaking feedback from the audience "larger format meetings are more engaging to present to."
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Recognition that the feature growth potential can leverage Zoom’s evolving AI capabilities for even faster, more nuanced customization.
Ideas for additional capabilities
To enhance usability and adoption, additional enhancements were proposed post-launch:
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Photo-generated avatars: Users could create avatars from uploaded images or a live camera snapshot.
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Quick-start customization: Instead of adjusting all 23 characteristics, a streamlined path would allow users to modify the top 8 most commonly customized features.
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Simplified navigation: A redesigned interface would bundle customization categories together, reducing navigation time and improving efficiency.
These enhancements were deprioritized for the initial release to speed up launch but remain strong candidates for future development.