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Redesigning time at Zoom – Zoom Calendar

In 2021, the entire Zoom ecosystem was revolving around “meetings”. The truth is, people plan their day in calendars, not in meeting lists. When we added calendar management to the Zoom suite, an entire mental model had to shift.

Adding Zoom Calendar to the Zoom suite meant supporting Zoom’s move beyond “just meetings” into a broader work platform. A big shift had to happen.

One strategic shift, 3 transition phases

Together with my PM, we split the transition into 3 distinct phases:

This shift took about 2.5 years and I led the design efforts.

Meeting vs Event: key differences

Zoom Meetings live on the Zoom server, have a unique Meeting ID, and can exist without a set time (in the case of private meeting rooms, for instance).

Events live on a calendar server (Google, Microsoft, etc. And soon, Zoom), and may include any meeting link (Meet, Teams, Zoom, etc.) or none at all.

My role: addressing multi-dimensional scenarios and plugging two worlds together

I led the shift to an event-first model across design with one simple rule: the event is the source of truth. I smoothened the experience with data and constraints coming from two different worlds, and handled complex scenarios:

And lastly, I designed the entire Zoom Calendar design system, designed grids where every pixel and spacing matters, and settled on calendar colors, a multiple-dimension mind puzzle on its own.

Impact

Zoom Calendar launched in beta in November 2022 and is now a full-feature competitor of Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. The event card I designed became a transversal universal container within the Zoom ecosystem.