What’s New in Zoom: Smarter Tools, Simpler Meetings
If Zoom looks or behaves a little differently the next time you open it, you’re not imagining things.
A series of recent and upcoming updates to Zoom Workplace is designed to make meetings easier to navigate, reduce interruptions, and give users more control over everything from screen sharing to meeting security. During a recent UCATT learning session, Malcolm Elliott, the university’s enterprise Zoom account manager, walked participants through the changes, including a redesigned interface and new meeting controls.
A new look for Zoom
One of the most noticeable changes is coming to the Zoom web portal. Beginning Oct. 26, Zoom will introduce a redesigned web experience to make frequently used features and settings easier to access. Meetings, chat, and other Zoom products will be consolidated under a menu near the user icon, while account and administrative functions will be grouped separately.
The Zoom Workplace desktop app is also getting a cleaner, more customizable navigation experience. Five options appear by default on the left side, but users can pin the features they use most often and remove those they don’t. A new + menu provides quick access to actions such as starting a meeting, creating a calendar event, or sending a chat message.
As Elliott explained during his demonstration, the goal is essentially a “cleanup and consolidation” of the interface, providing users with quicker access to the tools they use most.
Fewer interruptions when joining meetings
Two smaller changes could make a noticeable difference when rushing to join a meeting.
Users who enter a meeting without first signing in to Zoom can now sign in without leaving the meeting and rejoining. Previously, signing in could mean exiting the meeting and losing chat or other information already on the screen.
Zoom is also changing the timing of some automatic update prompts. Instead of stopping users before they enter a meeting and requiring an update, Zoom can let them join first and prompt them to update afterward.
“A lot of these changes are to stop interruptions to the meeting flow,” Elliott said.
More control once you're in a meeting
Meeting controls are becoming more flexible. Hosts can access tools such as the waiting room, meeting lock, and participant permissions from a consolidated side panel. Users can also pin frequently used controls to their meeting toolbar, and those preferences typically persist across future meetings on the same computer.
A new Dynamic Gallery view offers another way to see meeting participants. It focuses more closely on faces and upper bodies and adjusts participant window sizes to fit more people on screen. Participants can also rearrange the gallery unless the host has pinned a specific view.
And for anyone who has watched an important link or comment disappear into a busy meeting chat, Zoom now lets you bookmark chat messages for easier reference later.
Screen sharing is becoming more precise, too. Zoom users on Chrome or Edge can now share a single browser tab rather than an entire browser window or the full screen. That means participants see only the tab you select, not the email, documents, or other tabs you may have open nearby.
As Elliott pointed out, it can be especially useful when you don’t want to open a new browser window just to keep other content out of view during a meeting or class.
Zoom has also introduced additional security controls aimed at protecting information shared during meetings. Meeting settings can restrict participants' ability to copy chat content or download files. Zoom has also added a screen-capture control that meeting owners can choose to enable. When activated, supported screen-capture tools will not capture Zoom content such as shared screens, videos, whiteboards, chat, captions, polls and quizzes. The feature is intended to help protect sensitive information and reduce the potential for data loss. It is available as an option but is not enabled by default for everyone.
Taken together, the changes point toward a Zoom experience that is more customizable, less disruptive, and more deliberate in how information is shared and stored. Some updates are small enough that users may barely notice them, but they could make the meetings we attend every day a little easier to manage.
A sneak preview opportunity for these new Zoom capabilities will soon be available as an "opt-in" in late August.
Malcolm Elliott and Josh Butcher, assistant director for Instructional Technologies, regularly host the New Features with Zoom webinar series. Visit the UCATT events page for more information about upcoming webinars.