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Comment by jeztek | Hacker News Reader

It’s been a whole year since the pandemic started and video calls are still terrible. We've been doing a lot of research into how to make them better and wanted to share what we've learned.

We were aiming for something whimsical and easy to read so the tips primarily focus around illustrations that were inspired by IKEA instructions. For people who are interested in delving into the details we put the meat of the advice behind a "Why?" button.

This was also our first foray into writing a responsive site that renders well on mobile and desktop, built using Next.js and Tailwinds CSS.

What are some of your favorite video call hacks or tips?

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> It’s been a whole year since the pandemic started and video calls are still terrible.

Because it's hard. Just going through the list in the article:

> Use a cable to connect to the Internet

Difficult if your house isn't wired for ethernet and the modem is in an inconvenient spot, or in a room which contradicts tip #4. Do you let a long cable drift along the floor?

Powerlines will work in some houses, but not others, and can occasionally introduce their own connectivity problems.

> Make sure your upload speed is >3 Mbps

And if your ISP doesn't offer that much upload bandwidth, well then I guess you're SOL.

You can setup Ethernet through your power outlets with something like this https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV600-Powerline-Ethernet-Adap...

Yep, I mentioned those! They're great when they work, but it depends on how your house is wired.

For me: Powerline was better than wifi from the router, but worse then adding a mesh network. Running a cable would have been very expensive (under concrete + outside).

The other maker of Checklist.video here :)

Yeah, definitely agreed with you that it's difficult if your house isn't wired for ethernet. I actually do let a long cable drift along my floor :P Having a strong upload speed is crucial to letting others be able to hear you without any lag - and that's one of the most important factors to having a great video conference. This is why we wanted to emphasize a wired connection, but we also provided the specific upload/download speeds that could get you the high quality call as well.

I really like this, a few comments

Why not have the homepage be the checklist? Seems odd to have a page that says click here to see the checklist

Can you send this to the one guy on our Zoom calls who logs in 3 minutes after meeting starts, futzes around with camera/microphone/sound for 5 minutes and then 8 minutes into the call announces he’s online and wants to be filled in on what he missed?

From video production the one takeaway I have is key light vs backlight, webcams like key light and webcams struggle with back light

Lolol!!! Happy to send this to that guy if you somehow provide us his contact information :) I'm on Twitter here if you wanna DM me: https://www.twitter.com/melissadooo.

And yes, absolutely. Webcams - and actually cameras in general - REALLY struggle with back-lighting. Having a key light pointed at a wall so it's more diffuse and so it can cast a softer glow onto your face is ideal.

Videographers learn about 3-point lighting for ideal lighting situations in film school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_lighting.

Does “research backed” mean studies were done, or does it mean that you read a bunch of stuff and called it research?

If the former, can you link to any relevant papers, etc? I was looking for specifics on this for a project myself.

Hey supermatt, thanks for the feedback, that's good to know! Is there an alternative wording you would suggest? We meant to imply that the tips were primarily derived from findings from published research.

I’d be interested in the links to the published research!

If it’s actual research, I think the naming is fine. If it’s reading a bunch of “top 10 tips for looking great on webcam” then it’s not.

When I clicked on “why” I was expecting some actual information. As is, it just reads like an opinion piece IMHO

For example, you state an arms length as the optimal distance - but this would be different based on FoV, etc. There’s no real data I can see that would lead to make that statement.

It's at the bottom of the page: https://checklist.video/checklist/#references

Ah, okay I'm trying to understand your recommendation. Is it because not every tip has a research finding tied to it, which seems incongruous with the title? Or is it that the research finding doesn't explicitly tie to the recommendation?

Most of the tips do reference research findings, and you can find the reference by clicking on the subscript numbers or scroll down to the references section.

Some tips are more common sense and/or geared towards addressing a research finding. In the "arm's length" tip for example, the referenced paper discusses the importance of eye contact in computer mediated communications but doesn't explicitly say you should keep an arm's length to achieve the best eye contact. Was your expectation that the tip should link to research determining the optimal distance from the camera to achieve good eye contact?

> Was your expectation that the tip should link to research determining the optimal distance from the camera to achieve good eye contact?

Yep, that would "back" the statement with research, otherwise it is conjecture. As mentioned, this particular statement is easy to dismiss given the wide variety of FoV on webcams - but other statements are equally unfounded.

To clarify - I like the site, and im sure it is useful to many, but its very misleading to state that it is backed by research when it isnt.

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