Roxanne's Portfolio

Problem

People Who Stutter face technology-induced barriers in Video Conferences/Online Meetings that prevent equal contribution.

Our client requested we identify barriers brought by current solutions and design a pre- or post-meeting solution to tackle such barriers, amplify the angency of PwS, and enhance their overall meeting experience.

‼️ Note: Because our client had already developed a tool to be used during video conferences, our team focused on designing pre- and/or post-meeting solutions.

The Solution

Allowing the discussion to extend beyond the meeting is key.

Our research showed users often want to follow up after meetings to share unspoken thoughts, but this isn’t allowed for all meeting types for privacy reasons. Since most users have virtual meetings for work, we focused our design on work-related meetings.

Create & post on a discussion forum for a specific meeting before, during, or after meeting

Keeps the dialogue open, ensuring no voice is left out due to fluency barriers.
Allows users to gather their thoughts and respond without the urgency and interruptions of live speech.
Encourages equal participation and empowers PwS to take control of the discussion.

Add discussion posts to meeting notes

Challenges the bias that only spoken contributions matter in meetings.
Makes sure their ideas are seen and considered by the whole team.
Helps PwS build presence in team settings by ensuring their contributions are always documented in meeting notes.

Browse all forum posts linked to a specific meeting

Allows clear review of full discussion, reducing confusion.
Encourages post-meeting reflection.
Seeing what others have shared can help PwS feel more prepared and confident.

3 Key Design Decisions

To Ensure Visibility & Acknowledgment of Pre/Post-Meeting Written Contribution...

🔗 Seamless Integration of Forums Within a Meeting Management Tool.

By embedding a discussion forum into the meeting platform, we gave PwS an accessible space to share thoughts before, during, or after meetings – ensuring ongoing participation and that posting written contributions feels like a natural extension of the meeting workflow, increasing accessibility, visibility, and likelihood of use.

📌 Prioritized Written Contributions Across the Platform

Written input is consistently highlighted —whether at the top of meeting notes or on the home page — reinforcing that their contributions are visible, valued, and central to the meeting experience, even when unspoken.

🧭 Informed Posting Experience With Meeting Details Visible

We designed the forum interface to display key meeting info (e.g., agenda, attendees) while composing a post, helping reduce cognitive effort when participating asynchronously.

Literature Review

To better understand the problem space, we reviewed 18 academic papers on stuttering, video conferencing, and its negative impact on mental well-being. We learned that...

Speech disfluencies hinder equal speech opportunities and lead to low self-esteem and self-blame.

Videoconferencing tech lack visual cues like eye contact to prevent being cut off.

Thus, online meetings require extra effort from PwS, increasing mental exhaustion.

Interviews & Surveys

Participants are more likely to have a good experience in TEAM MEETINGS with inclusive and accepting colleagues.

We wanted to understand our target users' current needs, pain points, and goals in the context of video conferences. Our questions focused on users' experiences pre-, post- and during video conferences.

Affinity Diagram

We sorted our data into common themes to identify frequently mentioned issues, needs, and good meeting experiences as well.

Major Findings

Participants prioritize meeting productivity and equal contribution opportunities.
Workplace environment significantly impacts their experience in online meetings.
Participants rarely dwell on negative emotions or use external resources to improve their mood.

💡 Although we gathered valuable initial insights into user needs and pain points, interviews and surveys primarily provided us with one-way communication. We wanted to dive deeper!

Co-Design

We collaborated with our users in the initial brainstrom and sketching phrase.

We wanted to empower the voices of PwS who often feel marginalized in digital communication platforms and address their unique needs and preferences together!‍

Session Agenda

👉 Introductions & ice-breakers

👉 Discuss opinions on interview findings

👉 Brainstorm solutions

👉 Sketch with our designer (Me :))

‼️ Note: Solutions may not be fully representative of all people who stutter, as most PwS who agreed to participate are generally more comfortable speaking in video conferences and have years of experience managing negative emotions associated with their stutter. However, this doesn't mean they don't struggle with video conferencing...

Main Insights

One recurring need emerged from our activities – the need to extend the discussion beyond the meeting.

This is due to their frustration with not being able to say everything they want to say in video conferences.

“I want to have a chat session that stays open after the meeting.”

- Participant 1 from Session 1

“I want to directly email or contact the host after an online meeting.”

- Participant 2 from Session 1

“I want to be offered the opportunity to send a message to all participants via VC after the call.”

- Participant 1 from Session 2

“I want an opportunity to give additional contributions if I struggled to say what I needed to say during the meeting."

- Participant 1 from Session 3

Sketches made by participants and I illustrating their needs.

Vetoed Ideas & Trade-Offs

As we started to ideate and sketch possible solutions based on our gathered insights, we ran into some problems when attempting to design for ALL meeting scenarios.

To help choose an idea, we created a list of pros and cons for the top ideas. However, we soon realized that designing for all meeting scenarios may not be feasible.

Start a chat with participants in past meetings

Pros:

Directly responds to user needs.
Able to be integrated into Zoom.

Cons:

Violates other meeting attendees' privacy, especially if the meeting is among strangers.
Lacks consideration for users who joined meeting without email.

Send a link to the post-meeting discussion forum in the meeting chat

Pros:

Solves the privacy issue of last idea.
Can be integrated into the existing Zoom app develped by out client.

Cons:

Disrupts the ongoing meeting and causes confusion, hindering productivity.
Without incentives, other meeting attendees may not engage in post-meeting discussions.

💡 The cons outweighed the pros for both ideas. Our team has hit a hurdle :((
👉 Although it would be ideal to design for all types of meetings, including those among strangers, not every meeting is suitable for extended discussions.

Competitive Market Analysis

We found that for people who stutter, current meeting and team management tools such as...

Docs & Otter.ai: Meeting Note-taking Tools

Lack

two-way asynchronous communication opportunities for meeting related topics.

Slack & Teams : team communication tool

Lack

effective conversation tracking and archival mechanisms for meeting-related topics.

These insights are also supported by our Co-Design Sessions, where participants also noted their contribution via Zoom chats are often overlooked by meeting note taker.

“I don't like Zoom Chat because the meeting notes taker often overlooks it. It makes me feel like I'm at a disadvantage.”

- Participant 1 from Co-Design Session 1

“I want my post-meeting contribution to be added to the meeting notes as well.”

- Participant 2 from Co-Design Session 2

Design Requirements

To fill the gap by current technologies, we must ensure no meeting details are lost and discussions can continue seamlessly at any time.

🔁 Asynchronous Communication Support

The system must allow users to contribute before, during, and after a meeting.Posts must be saved and viewable in a persistent thread tied to a specific meeting.
‍
Why: This enables PwS to participate on their own time and ensures conversations don’t end when the meeting does.

🔍 Easy Discovery of Forums & Contributions

Written contributions must be visibly featured in all relevant areas: home page, meeting notes, and forums.They can be labeled clearly (e.g., “Unsaid Thoughts”) and surfaced in the top portion of notes. Users must be able to search for meetings and posts.
‍
Why: This signals to others that these inputs are important and ensures they are not overlooked.

📄 Persistent, Linked Forum Threads Per Meeting

Every meeting allows generation of a linked forum thread where discussion can continue.
‍
‍Why: This allows all meeting participants to create a discussion forum if needed.

User Testing + Iterations

3 Major Improvements in my design

Based on feedback from user testings and stakeholder meetings, I iterated my designs on Figma.

Emphasized main feature "meeting forums" in design of home page

Makes it immediately clear that there’s a space for asynchronous, written contributions.
Meeting details are pushed to sidebar.

Replaced meeting transcripts with agenda and notes

This makes the solution more actionable before, during, and after meetings.
Users can tag posts with "Unsaid Thoughts" to share ideas they didn't discuss during meetings.

Ensured visibility of meeting info when engaing in forum

Users can better frame their responses without needing to recall or ask for details.
Minimizes the need to switch back and forth between pages or tabs.

Impacts

Social Impact

People who Stutter are often excluded from the tech design process, especially in tools like videoconferencing apps. Our project empowered them by involving PwS in research and design, addressing their unmet need for an alternative way to share ideas after meetings.

Business Impact

Expanded on AImpower.org’s prior research by identifying new tech opportunities to support PwS, delivering refined prototypes and functional code for future development. Our work reinforces AImpower.org’s commitment to reducing tech barriers for underserved communities.

Challenges

Recruitment & Scammers

Due to offering compensation, we faced instances of false claims from individuals pretending to be People who Stutter (PwS). The niche stuttering community also posed recruitment challenges. To combat this, we introduced a rigorous screening process with an initial survey and targeted interview questions to weed out disingenuous participants. We also refined our recruitment to exclusively target stuttering foundations, reaching out to 23 associations to secure a genuine and focused participant pool.

Balancing User Needs, Client Needs, and Feasible Design

A major challenge was balancing user needs, client expectations, and design feasibility. We systematically evaluated options like chat versus thread functionality, timing of invitations, and access controls for starting discussions. This approach helped us develop a feasible, user-friendly solution that meets all stakeholder needs.

Designing For & WithPeople who Stutter

🤫 My Role

♥️ Team

⏰ Duration

🛠 Tools

📝 UX Skills Leveraged

💁🏻 Client

People Who Stutter face technology-induced barriers in Video Conferences/Online Meetings that prevent equal contribution.

Allowing the discussion to extend beyond the meeting is key.

Create & post on a discussion forum for a specific meeting before, during, or after meeting

Add discussion posts to meeting notes

Browse all forum posts linked to a specific meeting

To Ensure Visibility & Acknowledgment of Pre/Post-Meeting Written Contribution...

Let's StartFrom The Beginning

Participants are more likely to have a good experience in TEAM MEETINGS with inclusive and accepting colleagues.

Affinity Diagram

Major Findings

We collaborated with our users in the initial brainstrom and sketching phrase.

Session Agenda

One recurring need emerged from our activities – the need to extend the discussion beyond the meeting.

A Central Theme Emerged...

‼️ What I (PwS) say matters just as much as you. ‼️‼️ I have just as much to say as you. ‼️

As we started to ideate and sketch possible solutions based on our gathered insights, we ran into some problems when attempting to design for ALL meeting scenarios.

Start a chat with participants in past meetings

Send a link to the post-meeting discussion forum in the meeting chat

Going back to User Research Insights

Designing an inclusive team workspace, where post-meeting discussions are needed.

We found that for people who stutter, current meeting and team management tools such as...

Lack

Lack

To fill the gap by current technologies, we must ensure no meeting details are lost and discussions can continue seamlessly at any time.

3 Major Improvements in my design

Emphasized main feature "meeting forums" in design of home page

Replaced meeting transcripts with agenda and notes

Ensured visibility of meeting info when engaing in forum

Social Impact

People who Stutter are often excluded from the tech design process, especially in tools like videoconferencing apps. Our project empowered them by involving PwS in research and design, addressing their unmet need for an alternative way to share ideas after meetings.

Business Impact

Expanded on AImpower.org’s prior research by identifying new tech opportunities to support PwS, delivering refined prototypes and functional code for future development. Our work reinforces AImpower.org’s commitment to reducing tech barriers for underserved communities.

Recruitment & Scammers

Balancing User Needs, Client Needs, and Feasible Design

Discover How I...

Helped make learning more engaging and easy for high school students

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Helped prisoners explore educational content on tablet with ease

Designing For & With
People who Stutter

Let's Start
From The Beginning

‼️ What I (PwS) say matters just as much as you. ‼️
‼️ I have just as much to say as you. ‼️