These four brilliant ideas would make Zoom work a lot better.

In the work-from-home era, Zoom is our new office, and happy hour bar, and maybe even that place to catch a magic show when we’re all a bit tipsy afterward. But we don’t need to tell you that Zoom falls short at capturing the nuances of in-person communication. It’s still pretty tricky to have a satisfying group conversation in Zoom, let alone collaborate on important projects.

But Zoom is already here, so rather than complain, let’s fix it. Or at least that was the plan of two design studios, Bluecadet and Upstatement, which teamed up to each tackle a conceptual Zoom with their own point of view.

The ideas are practical, humanizing, and sometimes even fun. But most of all, they are unified through a single principle: agency. Whereas the Zoom of today is a place you mute to stay quiet while trying to keep your kids out of the frame, the Zoom they imagine for tomorrow is a place where you can communicate without talking at all, and colleagues can get their hands dirty on a project together.