Meeting Bridges: Designing Information Artifacts that Bridge from Synchronous Meetings to Asynchronous Collaboration

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of meeting bridges—information artifacts designed to facilitate asynchronous collaboration after meetings—based on user studies and co-design sessions, aiming to reduce meeting fatigue and improve post-meeting engagement.

Contribution

It proposes the design principles for meeting bridges, addressing limitations of current artifacts like notes and recordings, to better support asynchronous work and sensemaking.

Findings

Users utilize meeting information as archives, reminders, onboarding tools, sensemaking aids, and collaboration launchpads.

Current artifacts like notes and recordings have limitations in supporting effective asynchronous collaboration.

Design principles for meeting bridges can enhance post-meeting engagement and reduce synchronous meeting burdens.

Abstract

A recent surge in remote meetings has led to complaints of ``Zoom fatigue'' and ``collaboration overload,'' negatively impacting worker productivity and well-being. One way to alleviate the burden of meetings is to de-emphasize their synchronous participation by shifting work to and enabling sensemaking during post-meeting asynchronous activities. Towards this goal, we propose the design concept of meeting bridges, or information artifacts that can encapsulate meeting information towards bridging to and facilitating post-meeting activities. Through 13 interviews and a survey of 198 information workers, we learn how people use online meeting information after meetings are over, finding five main uses: as an archive, as task reminders, to onboard or support inclusion, for group sensemaking, and as a launching point for follow-on collaboration. However, we also find that current common meeting artifacts, such as notes and recordings, present challenges in serving as meeting bridges. After conducting co-design sessions with 16 participants, we distill key principles for the design of meeting bridges to optimally support asynchronous collaboration goals. Overall, our findings point to the opportunity of designing information artifacts that not only support users to access but also continue to transform and engage in meeting information post-meeting.