# Designing a Collaborative Virtual Conference Application: Challenges, Requirements and Guidelines
## 3 Methodology  
The aim of this study is to identify and understand the issues with the current virtual conference application with respect to usability and collaborative experience while performing collaborative activities. The study adapted the usability study to identify issues related to the usability and layout of the current virtual conference applications based on users' feedback. It also implemented a user-based evaluation to evaluate user experience on current virtual conference applications.  
The study focuses on identifying the limitations and issues encountered while performing collaborative activities on the current virtual conference application. The key research questions are: (1) What are the main issues and limitations of using current virtual conference applications while performing collaborative activity? (2) How does it affect the usability and user experience while using the current virtual conference application? (3) What are some recommendations or guidelines for improving the usability of the current virtual conference application? To answer these research questions, the exploratory experimental design with mixed method was used to identify the problems and limitations faced when using a virtual conference application for collaborative purposes.  
The Zoom meeting application was used to test the software in this experiment. This was because, when compared to other commercial meeting applications, the participants in this study were more familiar with using the Zoom meeting application for day-to-day online synchronous activities, such as meeting, learning, and collaborating. The study designed its own data-collection tools to help validate the analysis to achieve the objectives because very few reviews have been conducted to explain the area of this study. The study collected data through a questionnaire and focus group interviews. The questionnaire required participants to answer 46 questions relating to usability and user experiences. The study collected self-reporting answers from the participants, which included attributes such as terms of usage frequency, ease of use, affective input, collaborative experience, and system usability scale (SUS). Self-reporting was used in lieu of log tools, as the questionnaire answers provided a better insight on the overall perception and preferences of the participants when using virtual conference applications outside of the experiment. Additionally, five questions were asked during the focus group interview. The questions asked participants to elaborate on their overall experience using the virtual conference application, to state why they may or may not switch on their web cameras during virtual conferences, whether they noticed any affective feedback from their fellow meeting buddies, and to provide additional comments and suggestions to improve the current virtual conference application. The data for the questionnaire was collected and analyzed using Google forms. Prior to the analysis, the focus group discussion was transcribed using a speech-to-text transcription software (YouTube transcription).