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zestyping

Thank you! It's basic stuff like this that could so easily make a difference.

* Why do people have to appear in a random order?

* Why can't I tell at a glance who is speaking?

* Why can I only see 5 people if someone is sharing their screen?

* When someone is sharing their screen, why do I only get to see either their face or the screen, not both?

* Why can't I tell whether people are present/engaged when their video is off?

* Why can people be moved into breakout rooms only through a tedious and complex procedure, and why can it only be done by the host?

* Why can't I emoji-react to what someone is saying?

* Why can't I quickly answer a poll or join a team?

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> * Why can't I tell whether people are present/engaged when their video is off?

How would you like this to work? Sometimes I prefer others to think I'm engaged when I'm not

>* Why do people have to appear in a random order?

The service we use shows people in order of appearance, except you yourself (who is always prepended to the list).

>* Why can't I tell whether people are present/engaged when their video is off?

Why should you be able to tell? Quite often, meetings are a waste of time, and even in the ones which aren't, only a small amount of information will be useful to each person. It's easy to read HN and pay attention for your name or the name of the team you're part of while on a call. Besides that, what counts as 'present/engaged'? I think everyone would be present (in case something be asked of them). Does 'engaged' mean they need to sit there and nod at everything even if it's irrelevant to them?

> * Why can I only see 5 people if someone is sharing their screen?

This reminds me of my two huge pet peeves:

* Why am I forced to see people? If I'm deep into helping someone else out, I want to make their screen as big as possible, I'm not looking at their face at all.

* Zoom spends some effort making my lips and voice sync up. Why don't you make my clicks sync up as well when I'm sharing?

All these problems come from these video call services trying to serve a million masters. If you're in a meeting it might be nice to have a big red X while you're muted, but it's distracting in an online class when you're always muted. If you're in a class or doing a demonstration you might always want to see the screen, but if you're doing a presentation you may want to see both the face and the screen. How many people should you show while someone is sharing their screen? In my online class I would say 0, and in my meetings I would say everybody.

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