• Hybrid & Remote Work

How to Nail Modern Conference Room Design

Summary:

• Modern conference rooms need more than just cutting-edge technology. You also have to factor in features like room acoustics, lighting, speakers, camera positioning, microphones, furniture, and the layout of your space.
• Good camera positioning keeps everyone visible and connected, avoiding awkward angles and poor framing. Thoughtful lighting enhances visibility and helps people look their best on camera. The goal is to create a natural, face-to-face feel by maintaining virtual eye contact, so remote participants feel equally present in the room.
• High-quality microphones and speakers ensure voices sound clear and natural, preserving tone, nuance, and intent. Pair them with AV-friendly furniture that keeps cables hidden and sightlines open for cameras and displays to maintain a clean, professional environment.
• Monitors, displays, and screen-sharing tools make meetings more interactive, collaborative, and engaging. Soundproofing helps reduce distractions—and prevents everyone in the room from distracting the entire office.
• Smart room features let you switch platforms and control lighting, AV, HVAC, or scheduling with the click of a button. This removes friction from the meeting experience, allowing people to focus on what matters.
• Branded, professional backdrops enhance meeting spaces and reinforce your organization’s identity in-person and on-camera.

Today’s conference rooms have the potential to be much more than just a place for executives to meet. When they’re designed with intention and stocked with the right tools, furniture, hardware, and features, they become a central hub for collaboration.

But the simple truth is that many meeting spaces suffer from bad lighting, awkward layouts, painful furniture, and confusing tech. Poor implementation can turn promising new space into a place people consciously avoid—and that’s wasted ROI.

ET Group helps businesses design flexible, adaptable meeting spaces that honor the humans at the heart of every workflow. Let our team show you how to make modern conference rooms efficient and functional below, then book a discovery call to start planning yours.

1. Position Cameras to Enhance Visibility

Good camera placement helps participants feel present, seen, and engaged—whether they’re in the room or joining remotely. Poor angles can exclude people from view, distort body language, or make virtual eye contact feel unnatural. Inclusive camera setups support meeting equity by ensuring everyone has a seat at the (virtual) table.

What You Need to Consider:

• The shape and size of the conference room (e.g., huddle space vs. boardroom).
• Clear line of sight between the camera and all participants.
• Flexible furniture or seating arrangements that may change.
• Placement of screens, whiteboards, and other interactive tech.
• Lighting conditions from windows, fixtures, and lamps.

Tips for Nailing Camera Placement

Walk around the room a few times and pay attention to what you see—how does the line of sight shift? Use what you learn to customize best practices like these:

• • Mount cameras at eye level when seated (about 36 to 42 inches from the floor in most conference rooms). This helps make eye contact feel more natural.

• Mount cameras slightly higher and angle them downward if obstacles will impede the line of sight. Avoid aiming them upward—it’s almost always unflattering. 

• • Use dual or multi-camera setups in large or irregular rooms to keep all voices and faces in view. This avoids the “back of the room” problem and supports balanced participation.
  • Keep cameras away from bright lights, like windows, lamps or spotlights. It can introduce glare that confuses the camera’s built-in auto-exposure.

• Enable features like auto-framing or AI speaker tracking to center participants and make the conversation flow easier to follow for remote viewers.

Still relying on an old webcam or outdated camera? Consider this your sign to invest in something new—like Jabra’s PanaCast line.

Read More: The Best Zoom Rooms Hardware for 2025

2. Optimize Lighting to Eliminate Shadows & Glare

Balanced lighting is essential in conference rooms. Too little, and remote participants will struggle to see details and make out facial expressions. Too much, and you risk blinding everyone and introducing glare or harsh shadows.

What You Need to Consider:

• Fixture and bulb type (e.g., LED, fluorescent, halogen).
• The placement and angle of all light sources in the room.
• If you get natural light from windows and skylights.
• How light will bounce off reflective materials (e.g., tables).

Tips for Nailing Lighting

Lighting needs to be carefully balanced—otherwise, people may be unable to make out details or even the current speaker. To get it right, follow these tips: 

• Use indirect lighting sources, like wall sconces or diffused ceiling panels, to light the room without creating harsh shadows. Avoid bare bulbs and spotlights.
• Color-corrected LED bulbs make skin look more natural on video, rather than washing people out. Aim for >5000K to help people put their best face forward.
• Stay away from overhead fluorescents—they give people migraines, introduce glare on screens or displays, and cause unflattering shadows or flickers on video.
• Tie smart lighting into your AV control system (if you have one) for quick changes between meetings, presentations, and social gatherings.

Keep in mind that lighting adds ambiance. If you find you’re struggling to achieve that delicate balance between visibility and ambiance, recessed lighting will help.

Read More: Essential Meeting Technology for Office Board Rooms

3. Set Up Microphones & Speakers for Clear Audio

Poor quality speakers and microphones will derail a meeting faster than you can say “this meeting should have been an email.” Squelchy voices, feedback, and interference make it impossible to hear participants and virtually erase all evidence of tone of voice or intention.

What You Need to Consider:

• Microphone type (cardioid, beamforming, omnidirectional) and placement.
• The wattage (power) of your sound system and/or speakers.
• How sound echoes off of materials like wood, cement, and glass.
• Ambient noise pollution from HVAC, printers, foot traffic, and vehicles.

Tips for Nailing Audio Setup

Before you do anything else, test the acoustics of the room. Walk around while having a conversation, use any current equipment, and try playing music. This will help you identify dead zones or areas with poor coverage, but you should also:

• • Pick the right mic for the job. Ceiling-mounted beamforming mics work best in most conference rooms because they dynamically track speakers without table clutter.

• Use table microphones when consistent mic placement is possible. These work well in smaller boardrooms and spaces where participants always sit in the same place.

• Choose beamforming mics or wireless boundary mics if your conference room also serves as a flexible ad-hoc space with constantly changing layouts.

• Mount speakers on the ceiling or walls and space them evenly apart at the same height to ensure consistent sound coverage.
• Audio should originate from the front of the room on video calls. This helps anchor attention on far-end speakers during video calls.
• Use time-aligned (delayed) ceiling speakers in larger rooms to extend clarity. This creates a more natural, front-focused listening experience.
• Use hardware with built-in digital signal processors (DSPs) to automate voice levels, block echoes, and filter out background noise.

You’ll need more powerful speakers in larger conference rooms—often paired with an amplifier—to deliver clear audio across the space. All-in-one media bars are a great fit for smaller spaces because they come with built-in speakers (and often microphones and cameras), providing strong performance without the need for separate audio components.

Read More: How to Make Technology Buying & Investment More Effective

4. Choose Ergonomic & AV-Friendly Furniture

Conference room design isn’t interior design, but that doesn’t mean furniture should be an afterthought. Seating, tables, and sofas can impact sound clarity, block line of sight, and just make people incredibly uncomfortable if they aren’t carefully selected.

What You Need to Consider:

• How furniture materials affect acoustics (fabric vs. hard surfaces).
• How the layout affects line-of sight to cameras and displays.
• Cable management options like integrated power outlets.
• How light and sound bounce off hard, shiny surfaces, like metal.

Tips for Nailing Your Furnishings

When you’re picking furniture, think about how people use the space and aim for ergonomics over pure comfort. The goal is to prevent repetitive strain without putting people to sleep! To make the most of what you buy, apply tips like these:

• • Tables with hidden cable trays and pass-throughs let you tuck away cables, power cords, and other miscellany. This helps keep surfaces neat and clear.
  • Glass, metal, and other hard, shiny surfaces reflect both sound and light, introducing glare and echo. Adding rugs and upholstered furniture will dampen it.

• Modular furniture from companies like Structube or Steelcase will make it easier to use the conference room as a multi-purpose space, if desired.

• Pick durable, washable materials to make spills and wear and tear easier to address. Scotchgard can help lock out coffee and other staining liquids.

In general, it’s worthwhile to invest in decent furniture because it tends to hold up to regular wear and tear better—but price doesn’t always equal quality. 

5. Arrange Monitors & Displays for Easy Screen Sharing

Monitors, screens, and displays help make meetings more interactive and collaborative, but if you set them up in the wrong place, participants won’t be able to see them. Interactive whiteboards and other display tools need to be easy for everyone to access, too.

What You Need to Consider:

• The ideal mounting height and screen angle.
• How many displays you want or need.
• How natural light affects glare and reflections.
• If you plan to share photos, videos, or files.
• The impact of room size (bigger room, bigger display).

Tips for Nailing Monitor and Display Placement

Every room is different, so it’s difficult to give specific advice without knowing more about your space. That said, these best practices are broadly applicable:

• Mount screens just above at seated eye level whenever possible. Placing them too low or too high can quite literally be a pain in a participant’s neck.
• Use multiple displays or ultra-wide screens for viewing media, including videos, photos, charts, and text, in very large conference rooms or multi-use spaces.
• Ultra-low-latency wireless displays make it easy for participants to share their screen, files, or materials from their own personal devices.
• Don’t place displays by windows—the light will create harsh glare for at least part of the day. This is usually worse in high-rises with east or west-facing windows.

If you’re stuck with overly bright lighting or don’t have a lot of options, anti-glare coatings can help—but they do sometimes make displays hard to see from an angle

5. Optimize Acoustics to Minimize Distractions & Echoes

Unwanted noise is one of the most common complaints in conference rooms. Foot traffic, HVAC systems, or even airplanes overhead can disrupt focus—and poor acoustics only amplify the issue. Hard surfaces bounce sound around the room, making it difficult for participants to hear and be heard clearly.

What You Need to Consider:

• How sound reflects off walls, ceilings, and floors.
• Gaps around doors and windows that allow noise to enter or escape.
• The size and shape of the room and how it affects sound behavior.

Tips for Nailing Acoustics

Getting acoustics right is all about controlling how sound behaves. You can reduce distractions and enhance clarity with a few thoughtful adjustments:

• Add acoustic panels or wall treatments to absorb sound and reduce reverb.
• Use soft materials like carpets, curtains, or upholstered furniture to dampen noise.
• Seal gaps around doors and windows with acoustic seals or sweeps.
• Choose microphones and speakers tuned to the acoustic profile of the space—how the room’s size, shape, surfaces, and background noise affect the way sound travels.
• Use sound masking systems, like Biamp’s Cambridge Qt X, to introduce low-level background noise to make speech less intelligible at a distance—helping reduce distractions and protect privacy in open offices or shared work areas.
• Look for a high Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) when you’re buying soundproofing panels. The higher the number (0.0 to 1), the better.

Sound masking systems, like Biamp’s Cambridge Qt X, introduce low-level background noise to make speech less intelligible at a distance. This helps reduce distractions and protect privacy in open offices or shared work areas. While these systems aren’t typically used inside meeting rooms, sound masking can be a great addition to the area outside conference rooms because they prevent conversations from being overheard or interrupted.

6. Integrate Smart Room Controls for Seamless Video Meetings

Smart room controls bundle lighting, AV, HVAC, scheduling, and cross-platform compatibility into one cohesive system you can control with the click of a button. They help make conference rooms more efficient, more comfortable, and more enjoyable to use.

What You Need to Consider:

• If existing AV, HVAC, and lighting are compatible.
• Whether the system supports Zoom, Teams, Webex, etc.
• The potential for integration with calendars or One-Touch Join.
• If you want to install occupancy sensors in the room.

Tips for Nailing Smart Room Controls

Step 1 is to get expert advice first. Smart systems and interoperability features are very complicated, and the more variables at play the harder they are to integrate. We’d love to help you develop a strategy for implementing tips like these:

• Talk to everyday users, not just key stakeholders. Control systems should save people time, not force them to spend more time micromanaging.
• Use controls to save money and the environment. Set systems to activate when someone enters the room and power down when they leave.
• Calendar-based automation can help you automate conference room booking as well as video or audio calls. One-Touch Join is what makes everything interoperable.

It’s easiest to look for systems that are already compatible with platforms like Teams, Zoom, and Synergy Sky. If there’s nothing available, it may be possible to build an integration from scratch to fulfill your needs.

7. Create a Camera-Ready Background for Virtual Calls

What’s in the background of your video calls can be easy to overlook even though it has the potential to negatively affect perception. Cluttered, poorly lit desks, bad paint jobs, and the remains of the last meeting distract participants and make people look less professional.

What You Need to Consider:

• The color, texture, and style of the wall.
• Where windows, mirrors, and bright objects sit.
• How consistent the lighting is throughout the room. 
• If you want to include clear branding and/or marketing materials.

Tips for Nailing Background Setup

Most conference rooms are professional in nature, and that means what’s in the background is, too. If you’re developing for the first time or in an open-concept space:

• Stick with neutral, professional colors, like earth tones. In general, matte textures work better than shiny surfaces because of the way they reflect light.

• Use fixed or retractable backdrops to instantly block out the background—or hide anything you don’t want visible on camera during a call.

• Try to position speakers in front of a solid wall, not directly in front of or across from a window. Natural light introduces glare that can blind the camera.

Don’t forget to add strategic branding! Show your pride and highlight the personality of your brand with a logo or two, whether it’s through digital signage, colors, or imagery.

Let ET Group Design Your Next Conference Room

Technology is helping to modernize conference rooms all across the globe, but just throwing money at hardware is rarely the answer. Designing the perfect meeting space never happens in isolation like that because curiosity and discovery is always the first step.

It might sound a little philosophical to say that the collaboration has to come first, but that’s the simple truth. Taking the time to understand the way people work, what they want from their meeting spaces, and how they see the future is what guides great design.

Ready to transform your conference room? Book a discovery call today to get expert advice tailored to your unique workplace challenges.

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