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Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happy.

acdha 5y ago
Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform. I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that has nothing do with UX other than not needing to tell people to uninstall the old apps and install the current one.
- justaguy88 5y ago
  > Which UX problem do you think it fixed? You can join a call without signing up
- sombremesa 5y ago
  When Zoom first came onto the scene, the other technologies you've listed had more friction than coarse grained sandpaper. Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything. I don't know about all the solutions you've listed, but Google Meet for example still requires an account whereas Zoom still does not. As more and more people use Zoom, the friction of using it decreases as well, since you can more safely assume that people have used it before and are familiar with it - if not, they can still use it without making an account, and without downloading anything (though this has become a bit harder now). Furthermore, Zoom was also one of the first solutions to let you simply call in with your phone (and put that option front and center), which also does not require accounts or any downloads. There are probably many other things I'm glossing over here - UX is a holistic phenomenon after all, and requires many small things to feel right. I'm not sure whether you're arguing that Zoom did not have 10x better UX than anything out there when it launched, but if you are, I can't help but think you're being willfully ignorant.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything I find your second part interesting because for years Zoom has tried to force you to download their client — you have to learn how to construct the web URL to generate links to use it in a browser since they removed the option from their web UI. > I'm not sure whether you're arguing that Zoom did not have 10x better UX than anything out there when it launched, but if you are, I can't help but think you're being willfully ignorant. I'm not sure why you're inclined to take such an uncharitable view but I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who was relatively late to using Zoom (2020) and found it pretty similar to the competition. I used Skype, WebEx, Teams, Hangouts/Meet, and Chime professionally first and Facetime / Hangouts personally prior to that and the only one I'd say is 10x worse is Skype.
    - nieve 5y ago
      Re: join via web, in my experience if you reject the download a few times it'll pop up the link. Clearly a dark pattern attempting to force you to install their insecure and frankly kind of crappy software, but apparently one they're aware of problems with. They just don't care.
    - pmontra 5y ago
      I used Zoom yesterday after months and I had to download the client. I was in hurry because a customer sent me a link so I didn't investigate much. They usually make calls on Slack which works well and already has all of their conversations. WebEx used to be a nightmare with a Java client. Maybe it's better now but I didn't use it for years on a computer. I had an Android tablet with the WebEx app and I used that. Luckily no customer of mine is using WebEx anymore. I never used Chime and never heard about it until now. Skype doesn't have URLs AFAIK. I used it with a small group of friends during lockdowns because it was the intersection of what all of them had. We rejoined the same call every time. It works well once started. Cumbersome to start. Meet has the least friction: create a call, send a URL, click/tap to join. I don't remember if a Google account is required but everybody has one in this part of the world because of Android. It works well. Teams has a mandatory download AFAIK, I got a customer that uses it. It works well once started. I have no idea if I can start a call without an Office 365 account. I remember that it asks me to login to that customer's Office. FaceTime, never used because it's an Apple only thing. I don't have the hardware. Duo, I think it improved since its launch but despite being in the phones everybody uses here, everybody makes call with WhatsApp. I think Google lost the network effect battle. WhatsApp is the easiest to start a call with but no URLs, no calls on the desktop. The quality is not very good, maybe because people can have poor connections on their phones (mobile data or crowded WiFi channels.) Telegram added group calls recently but I never used them. Network effects again and at least 10 times less market penetration. One to one calls where on par with WhatsApp.
- biztos 5y ago
  I think a lot of it is that everyone has heard of Zoom, and Zoom works pretty well for calls with a lot of people, so it became the default for group video calls. The “UX” in this case was “fixed” by being less crashy than the competition for long enough to earn a reputation. As someone with a security background myself, I really hope organizations use it less and less, because the competition by now works just fine. But as a human living in the world, I don’t refuse to use Zoom, I just use it on my iPad and assume the conversation is intercepted somewhere.
- artursapek 5y ago
  The reason Zoom won is their meeting URLs which open their app, combined with no registration requirement. It's just a very viral product.
- reilly3000 5y ago
  It’s tight integration with calendar systems and Slack definitely help. Their browser extension makes Google Calendar event creation have a Zoom Meeting link that is seamless, and /zoom is irresistible. For a time they had the best free tier on the market, and people appreciated the 45 minute time limit that came along with it. FWIW the competition was terrible for a time. I’ve never been on a BlueJeans call that wasn’t painful, Google Meet/Hangouts had terrible quality, GoToMeeting was neglected post-acquisition, slack killed their meeting product for a while, and WebEx was bloated. Join.me was my goto for a while, but now I use Jitsi when I get to choose, but usually end up on Zoom calls.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  Probably the camera and microphone on by default. I remember people pleasantly surprised that they just clicked a link and everything worked, instead of minutes of “click that button to enable video”. I find Zoom’s interface terrible, but I’m not a good reference for average user.
CabSauce 5y ago
Really? Their UI/UX within a call is the worst of the major video conferencing tools, IMO.
- netr0ute 5y ago
  I think it's because we power users want more from a UI, but to Average Joe, Zoom is great because all the simple stuff is easy to understand.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    I've got to agree with the GP on this. I would argue Zoom is one of the least simple to understand UIs. - It's multi-window (like WebEx). Whereas Teams and Meets is a single window interface - It has a great many options and not all of them are immediately obvious. Like how filters are hidden behind then stop cam button I'm not saying I'm a fan of MS Teams nor Google Meets either. But they do have a much slicker UI.
    - littlecranky67 5y ago
      Teams gas recently switched to multi window, too.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        That's not been my experience. Is that an opt in (ie none default behaviour) or a specific Teams client running on a specific machine? I've used the Mac, Linux and Windows client regularly up until 2 months ago (using pretty much the default settings) and since it's just been the Mac client.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I can tell you that this is pretty much everyone. I've just experienced this in some interviews and conferences where people were using Zoom and Teams for the first time. There was definitely much more confusion when using Zoom than teams. How do I share my screen? How do I open the participants/chat when sharing the screen ... The interface especially when sharing a screen is absolutely horrible.
version_five 5y ago
Many of the replies to your comment have the "No wireless, less space than a nomad" vibe" People seem to nitpick or claim equivalence between individual features, but like you say, Zoom was the sea change toward mass videoconferencing.
- illiac786 5y ago
  completely disagree. The pandemic was the sea change toward mass videoconferencing. Zoom just surfed the wave significantly better than others, thanks to good marketing and a simple ordering process. (Ordering Webex has gotten better but I dare you to order it back in 2019 for example...)
dathinab 5y ago
Except they don't have the best food, they have the illusion of it. When I had to do interviews recently I had to use a wide variety of Video Conference Software, and Zoom was the only one which had some arbitrary user unfix-able not configuration related problems. Ok, slack also sucks bad if any part has a problematic internet connection, but I only ran into it after I had a new job ;=) But yes, the UX is better compared to e.g. MS Teams, but MS Teams works way more reliable (for Video Conferences, assuming it's only used for that and no "fancy" business access control features are enabled).
markshepard 5y ago
Honestly airsend (https://www.airsend.io https://www.airsend.io) works better than Zoom . Airsend can join meetings without creating accounts (God send for interviewing job candiy). With all the Zoom dark ui patterns galore, UX is confusing for new users. Zoom forces desktop app and quality has come down also. Now Teams and Meet are even better than Zoom.
- illiac786 5y ago
  Zoom, Webex, Google, all offer guest joining without creating an account, you need to check your facts. I agree that zoom pushing the desktop app is bad though.

acdha 5y ago

Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform. I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that has nothing do with UX other than not needing to tell people to uninstall the old apps and install the current one.

justaguy88 5y ago
> Which UX problem do you think it fixed? You can join a call without signing up
sombremesa 5y ago
When Zoom first came onto the scene, the other technologies you've listed had more friction than coarse grained sandpaper. Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything. I don't know about all the solutions you've listed, but Google Meet for example still requires an account whereas Zoom still does not. As more and more people use Zoom, the friction of using it decreases as well, since you can more safely assume that people have used it before and are familiar with it - if not, they can still use it without making an account, and without downloading anything (though this has become a bit harder now). Furthermore, Zoom was also one of the first solutions to let you simply call in with your phone (and put that option front and center), which also does not require accounts or any downloads. There are probably many other things I'm glossing over here - UX is a holistic phenomenon after all, and requires many small things to feel right. I'm not sure whether you're arguing that Zoom did not have 10x better UX than anything out there when it launched, but if you are, I can't help but think you're being willfully ignorant.
- acdha 5y ago
  > Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything I find your second part interesting because for years Zoom has tried to force you to download their client — you have to learn how to construct the web URL to generate links to use it in a browser since they removed the option from their web UI. > I'm not sure whether you're arguing that Zoom did not have 10x better UX than anything out there when it launched, but if you are, I can't help but think you're being willfully ignorant. I'm not sure why you're inclined to take such an uncharitable view but I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who was relatively late to using Zoom (2020) and found it pretty similar to the competition. I used Skype, WebEx, Teams, Hangouts/Meet, and Chime professionally first and Facetime / Hangouts personally prior to that and the only one I'd say is 10x worse is Skype.
  - nieve 5y ago
    Re: join via web, in my experience if you reject the download a few times it'll pop up the link. Clearly a dark pattern attempting to force you to install their insecure and frankly kind of crappy software, but apparently one they're aware of problems with. They just don't care.
  - pmontra 5y ago
    I used Zoom yesterday after months and I had to download the client. I was in hurry because a customer sent me a link so I didn't investigate much. They usually make calls on Slack which works well and already has all of their conversations. WebEx used to be a nightmare with a Java client. Maybe it's better now but I didn't use it for years on a computer. I had an Android tablet with the WebEx app and I used that. Luckily no customer of mine is using WebEx anymore. I never used Chime and never heard about it until now. Skype doesn't have URLs AFAIK. I used it with a small group of friends during lockdowns because it was the intersection of what all of them had. We rejoined the same call every time. It works well once started. Cumbersome to start. Meet has the least friction: create a call, send a URL, click/tap to join. I don't remember if a Google account is required but everybody has one in this part of the world because of Android. It works well. Teams has a mandatory download AFAIK, I got a customer that uses it. It works well once started. I have no idea if I can start a call without an Office 365 account. I remember that it asks me to login to that customer's Office. FaceTime, never used because it's an Apple only thing. I don't have the hardware. Duo, I think it improved since its launch but despite being in the phones everybody uses here, everybody makes call with WhatsApp. I think Google lost the network effect battle. WhatsApp is the easiest to start a call with but no URLs, no calls on the desktop. The quality is not very good, maybe because people can have poor connections on their phones (mobile data or crowded WiFi channels.) Telegram added group calls recently but I never used them. Network effects again and at least 10 times less market penetration. One to one calls where on par with WhatsApp.
biztos 5y ago
I think a lot of it is that everyone has heard of Zoom, and Zoom works pretty well for calls with a lot of people, so it became the default for group video calls. The “UX” in this case was “fixed” by being less crashy than the competition for long enough to earn a reputation. As someone with a security background myself, I really hope organizations use it less and less, because the competition by now works just fine. But as a human living in the world, I don’t refuse to use Zoom, I just use it on my iPad and assume the conversation is intercepted somewhere.
artursapek 5y ago
The reason Zoom won is their meeting URLs which open their app, combined with no registration requirement. It's just a very viral product.
reilly3000 5y ago
It’s tight integration with calendar systems and Slack definitely help. Their browser extension makes Google Calendar event creation have a Zoom Meeting link that is seamless, and /zoom is irresistible. For a time they had the best free tier on the market, and people appreciated the 45 minute time limit that came along with it. FWIW the competition was terrible for a time. I’ve never been on a BlueJeans call that wasn’t painful, Google Meet/Hangouts had terrible quality, GoToMeeting was neglected post-acquisition, slack killed their meeting product for a while, and WebEx was bloated. Join.me was my goto for a while, but now I use Jitsi when I get to choose, but usually end up on Zoom calls.
tambourine_man 5y ago
Probably the camera and microphone on by default. I remember people pleasantly surprised that they just clicked a link and everything worked, instead of minutes of “click that button to enable video”. I find Zoom’s interface terrible, but I’m not a good reference for average user.

CabSauce 5y ago

Really? Their UI/UX within a call is the worst of the major video conferencing tools, IMO.

netr0ute 5y ago
I think it's because we power users want more from a UI, but to Average Joe, Zoom is great because all the simple stuff is easy to understand.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  I've got to agree with the GP on this. I would argue Zoom is one of the least simple to understand UIs. - It's multi-window (like WebEx). Whereas Teams and Meets is a single window interface - It has a great many options and not all of them are immediately obvious. Like how filters are hidden behind then stop cam button I'm not saying I'm a fan of MS Teams nor Google Meets either. But they do have a much slicker UI.
  - littlecranky67 5y ago
    Teams gas recently switched to multi window, too.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      That's not been my experience. Is that an opt in (ie none default behaviour) or a specific Teams client running on a specific machine? I've used the Mac, Linux and Windows client regularly up until 2 months ago (using pretty much the default settings) and since it's just been the Mac client.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  I can tell you that this is pretty much everyone. I've just experienced this in some interviews and conferences where people were using Zoom and Teams for the first time. There was definitely much more confusion when using Zoom than teams. How do I share my screen? How do I open the participants/chat when sharing the screen ... The interface especially when sharing a screen is absolutely horrible.

version_five 5y ago

Many of the replies to your comment have the "No wireless, less space than a nomad" vibe" People seem to nitpick or claim equivalence between individual features, but like you say, Zoom was the sea change toward mass videoconferencing.

illiac786 5y ago
completely disagree. The pandemic was the sea change toward mass videoconferencing. Zoom just surfed the wave significantly better than others, thanks to good marketing and a simple ordering process. (Ordering Webex has gotten better but I dare you to order it back in 2019 for example...)

dathinab 5y ago

Except they don't have the best food, they have the illusion of it. When I had to do interviews recently I had to use a wide variety of Video Conference Software, and Zoom was the only one which had some arbitrary user unfix-able not configuration related problems. Ok, slack also sucks bad if any part has a problematic internet connection, but I only ran into it after I had a new job ;=) But yes, the UX is better compared to e.g. MS Teams, but MS Teams works way more reliable (for Video Conferences, assuming it's only used for that and no "fancy" business access control features are enabled).

markshepard 5y ago

Honestly airsend (https://www.airsend.io https://www.airsend.io) works better than Zoom . Airsend can join meetings without creating accounts (God send for interviewing job candiy). With all the Zoom dark ui patterns galore, UX is confusing for new users. Zoom forces desktop app and quality has come down also. Now Teams and Meet are even better than Zoom.

illiac786 5y ago
Zoom, Webex, Google, all offer guest joining without creating an account, you need to check your facts. I agree that zoom pushing the desktop app is bad though.