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Aside: Imagine you’re driving down the road and you need to make a right turn. Well, for some reason the steering wheel is stowed away and disappeared! You need
by neilpanchal 6y ago
Aside: Imagine you’re driving down the road and you need to make a right turn. Well, for some reason the steering wheel is stowed away and disappeared! You need to hover your hand around the center console in a specific area to be able to expose it. Out comes the steering wheel and now you can make a right turn.
Google UX/UI team: Please fucking make the mute/unmute button visible at all times.
- askvictor 6y agoMore important than the button is the status indicator - I need to know if the call is muted or not. Even better, promote it to an OS-level icon/badge/overlay. If my mic is actively in use, please make it blindingly obvious.
- captn3m0 6y agoThe color indicator for mic on/off is terribly for Meet.
- nathancahill 6y agoAbsolutely horrible. Both states are equally plausible in the UI.
- neilpanchal 6y agoIt's a toggle switch. The action and its current status is combined.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoAnd then I have to keep hovering over the icon and guessing from the tooltip whether I'm muted or not. Unfortunately, different software tends to be inconsistent with toggle buttons - sometimes the icon tells you what is, sometimes it tells you what will happen if you click it.
- odiroot 6y agoI already have it on my Thinkpad with KDE Plasma. Physical button to block the microphone, LED on the button itself and a tray icon with the microphone status displayed.
- wazoox 6y agoI have it on my IdeaPad with Pop_OS, too. The buttons work as intended and you can easily mute/unmute at any time whatever application has the focus.
- dawnerd 6y agoAlso stop telling me my camera is disabled. Like, I know it is, I disabled it for a reason.
- baskire 6y agoCOVID taught me that video conferencing is so much more demanding than phone conference bridges. The best conferencing solutions I’ve used to shame those not using video
- sundvor 6y agoAnd stop telling me I'm using an input different than the output. I have a condenser microphone on an audio interface with RTX Voice; no, it's not going to transmit an echo.
- helpfulgoogler 6y agoNot what you asked for, but you can mute/unmute quickly with the keyboard shortcut: ⌘/Ctrl + d
- TheChaplain 6y agoThe blessed workaround as we say in software engineering, which allows us to move the real issue waay down the backlog indefinitely. :)
- tobr 6y agoAh, yes, of course. D as in mute.
- oars 6y agoM is taken by minimise, hence the next closest thing is D (for deaf).
- kosinus 6y agoBut ⌘D is also 'add bookmark' on Mac, at least. So depending on which UI element inside Chrome is focussed, it may not do what you want either. I've been using this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-meet-push-to-talk/pgpidfocdapogajplhjofamgeboonmmj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-meet-push-t...
- aaronharnly 6y agoNice, thanks. I have a lot of Meets hanging around in my bookmarks thanks to the focus being slightly wrong when I press command-D.
- randomsearch 6y agoWould it be less arbitrary to add another modifier to the shortcut, rather than use "D"?
- tobr 6y ago
- systemvoltage 6y agoIsn't this sort of a Fizz Buzz for a UX/UI design professional? I don't mean to demean anyone, but I see this sort of a thing literally everywhere. Hiding important and absolutely crucial information (that can make or break your product) in the name of minimalism. Coming out of a company that has one of the highest hiring bars for software engineering, and yet, their products have such an awful UX/UI. This isn't an exception, it is a pattern.
- atoav 6y agoI worked as a freelance graphic artist/web designer once and while I wasn't bad at the job, I really hated one aspect of it: Everybody and their kid thought they knew better than I did. When I said: "Yeah but this should really be visible, because accessibility", they would say: " But it looks better if..." People in high paid position certainly want "has taste" and "knows what looks good" to be part of their self image. Many fails in design and architecture happen for that reason alone. I then ended up programming and working in film sound, because very few people in both fields tell you what to do when they have no idea what's going on.
- slimsag 6y agoWhat do you do as a programmer in film sound? How did you get into that? Sounds very niche/interesting
- atoav 6y agoI actually studied film and through my music experience I was always "the sound guy" programming was actually more like a hobby until it turned out I am actually not bad at it.
- slimsag 6y agoI did a fair amount of indie films and know sound guys, so the part I am confused about is: what are you programming in film sound? is it per-film, or like software for film sound in general?
- leeoniya 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation
- TacoSteemers 6y agoI have similar problems with Zoom. The mute/unmute changes position and can be hidden in a top bar that slides out. In some fullscreen situations there is no button to get out of fullscreen. Sometimes double-click works, sometimes it doesn't. Recently I could not even alt-tab away, basically my computer got 'locked' by zoom. https://tacosteemers.com/articles/2020-10-16-ux-anti-pattern-no-controls-in-fullscreen.html https://tacosteemers.com/articles/2020-10-16-ux-anti-pattern...
- jcims 6y agoI imagine most know this by now but the space bar works as a push to talk button in Zoom (as long as it has focus of course). I really think there is a market for a physical video conference controller. If I could get a hefty slab of something with quality buttons to enable/disable video, push to talk/mute/unmute, bring to foreground, ‘on air’ light and end call, I’d easily pay $100 for it.
- TacoSteemers 6y ago> I imagine most know this by now but the space bar works as a push to talk button in Zoom (as long as it has focus of course). I hadn't checked for shortcuts yet! On my install it turns out to be alt + a.
- Spoom 6y agoThese exist, but they're quite a bit more expensive. They're really nice to have though, and one reason I sometimes miss the office. https://meetingdevices.withgoogle.com/ https://meetingdevices.withgoogle.com/ I bet there is similar hardware the works with Zoom. Googler, opinions my own.
- jcims 6y agoYes! I worked at Crittenden Lane about five years ago and really liked the hardware at the time. The whole thing was eye-opening for me, how seamlessly I could meet with folks whether they were in Zurich or on the second floor...I imagine it has only got better since then.
- adrr 6y agoIt’s even worse on touch devices. You have to touch the bottom screen to get the controls to appear. Accident touch twice in the wrong location and you can hang up.
- Spare_account 6y agoI've often thought that on a touch screen device the OS should ignore touches on buttons/popups that have been on screen for less time than a human could reasonably have observed it and chosen to interact with it. If I touch the screen 0.05 seconds after a button appears, I was probably _not_ aiming for that button. In fact, now I think about it, this has happened many times over the years with traditional mouse drive interfaces too. I'm sure some power users would like to shorten the 'reaction time delay' or even remove it entirely so I guess that should be an option as well.
- XorNot 6y agoHonestly with mouse driven interfaces the rule should be that whatever is popping up on screen absolutely cannot put an interactable control under the current mouse cursor location, and no control should have control focus by default. There's nothing quite like watching a dialog box go flying by because you hit enter at the exact moment it popped up. What was it? What did it do? We'll never know!
- therealcamino 6y agoMy "favorite" instance of that, many years ago, was when the dialog turned out to have said, "Reboot the computer immediately because IT has installed new software." I filed a ticket on that one.
- folmar 6y agoAs a "power user" I totally disdain the idea. I know what will appear in programs I use often and touch without waiting for the button to be drawn.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wdr1 6y agoCmd-D will mute/unmute. I find it much easier than using the mouse.
- chedabob 6y agoI find more often than not I end up bookmarking the page with that shortcut.
- vosper 6y agohttps://www.meetenhancementsuite.com/ https://www.meetenhancementsuite.com/ Not that you should have to install an extension to get basic UX
- ehsankia 6y agoTo be fair a lot of sites do need it, especially for more power user level UX. See BetterTTV, RES, etc. Sites generally don't target power users, understandably.
- janekm 6y agoThe British PM just had to tell a major media journalist to unmute during the press conference introducing the new quasi-lockdown, so I think we can safely say that Mute button and status is no longer a power-user feature ;)
- ehsankia 6y agoDoesn't Meet, like most other app, have a message when you try to speak muted? Though they should maybe make it more obvious. I do agree that mute button isn't power user.
- chedabob 6y agoAlso don't put that damn bar over the subtitles.
- Angostura 6y agoMS Teams has finally changed this on their video calls. Ah the hours I spent telling colleagues 'If you move your mouse around, you should see a black bar appear somewhere near the middle llof the screen'.
- gogopuppygogo 6y agoZoom has the same issue. I bought an external microphone for my laptop with a hardware mute button.
- nurettin 6y agoWe are in the era of three seashells. There is no turning back from this. Soon you won't be able to find the power button for anything tech industry related.
- teddyh 6y ago“Off switches are illegal.”
- vagrantJin 6y agoI looked like an idiot trying to find a power button for a meeting a few weeks back. Literally stood there feeling up the TV for a good few minutes. I'm a 28 yr old software developer.
- rplnt 6y ago> Out comes the steering wheel and now you can make a right turn. But you will hit a dog probably, because the steering wheel suddenly blocks your view too.
- amf12 6y agoWhen did you recently use Meet? I just used it yesterday with a gaming session with friends and the console for the mute / unmute was visible at all times. I even just tried it right now.
- tester34 6y agoThe only software that gets vide-co right is probably Discord I used MS Teams and zoom and both are decent (ms teams works fine for school) but it's insanely unbelievable that this kind of software lacks of features that gaming communities had probably 20 years ago PUSH TO TALK is probably one of the most important features of any voice software. The lack of it is big WTF. It gives you 100% control over when you're talking and you don't have to alt-tab between programs in order to "mute" yourself. You can bind it to e.g MOUSE3 (scroll-push) and it works fine with other programs, games and stuff. Switching between muted/unmuted is different thing. From somebody who uses/used ventrilo, mumble, teamspeak and nowadays discord for like last 12 years for hours per day, almost everyday.
- Orphis 6y agoFor push to talk to work, you need to have access to keys even when you're not in focus. That's not something doable today on the web for obvious security reasons, but it's possible for Discord that has a separate app, would be doable for Zoom too I guess.
- tester34 6y agoMS Teams, Discord, Skype and all older stuff like Ventrilo, TeamSpeak and Mumble - all were (and are) avaliable on Desktop.
- Daniel_sk 6y agoZoom has PTT but only if the window is in focus, which kind of kills the actual use case. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000510003-Push-to-Talk?mobile_site=true https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000510003-Push-...
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoInteresting sidenote: PTT works fairly well on mobile. I'm in a lot of meetings where folks are using their computers for video and "dial in" for audio on mobile so that they can continue working and then PTT on the phone which is now functionally a giant dedicated button for speaking.
- himinlomax 6y agoWhile you're at it, always display a vu-meter. It gives feedback on what is transmitted and thus can alert a user whether they are being heard or not. It's the most basic of sound recording tools, and was a standard part of recording equipment for over half a century for good reason. And if you need minimalism, offer a toggle for that. But I think most people should have it forced on them, would save anyone a lot of trouble -- just think about all the aggregate time lost talking into a muted mike by all users.
- sundvor 6y agoIf you're on Windows, "Digital Level Meter" is an absolute gem: https://www.darkwooddesigns.co.uk/pc2/meters.html https://www.darkwooddesigns.co.uk/pc2/meters.html I did donate a contribution to say thank you.
- tjpnz 6y agoSpeaking of mute/unmute I've not yet found a way to get Google Hangouts (same thing as Meet?) to play nice in situations where simultaneous interpretation is involved. Our company works in Japanese and English and we typically have a second meeting running in parallel for interpretation. This setup almost works, I say almost because I've yet to find a way of muting the audio in one meeting so I can properly listen to the other. I can't leave the first meeting either because often I'll also want to see the presentation slides. Currently I'm working around this by muting my MacBook and joining the second meeting on my phone. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious (or a Chrome plugin that will allow me to mute based on the page URL rather than site). In the unlikely event that a Googler is reading this I'm not asking for yet another product or complicated new piece of functionality aimed at this specific use case. Just a mute button for audio. Thanks!
- lima 6y ago> Google Hangouts (same thing as Meet?) No, vastly different products. Hangouts is the legacy thing and never worked quite right for me. Meet is much better.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoThe line between the two is not so obvious. Google was calling their new product "Hangouts Meet" until quite recently.
- emartinelli 6y agoRight click on the tab -> "Mute site". It works for me for Chromium on Ubuntu.
- tjpnz 6y agoThe problem with that is it mutes the whole domain. I still want to listen to one of the meetings.
- faitswulff 6y ago
- eugmill 6y agocmd+D will mute/unmute (ctrl+D on windows?) I still can't stand the bottom popping up and down and not being able to tell if I'm muted.
- swiley 6y agoAt this point the bad UI in google products feels intentional. You're supposed to feel helpless on computers and just do whatever they want you to do.
- sundvor 6y agoA major motivation why I got a StreamDeck was to be able to put a big fat mute button that "physically" kills the microhone level at the source. It renders a big cross through the microphone when muted. Simple, yet insanely effective UI (#). Best thing ever. #) Especially when compared to the mess that is Google Meet. My favourite "feature" of theirs is how when someone is presenting, it's impossible to view the presentation as just another stream - no they have to make it dominate everything, meaning it's so hard to see the other team members. And it can be extremely hard to see who's talking when viewing a lot of cameras at the same time. And for whatever reason the quality turns to a blurry mess a far cry from 720p just way too often. (I have fibre internet).
- howlgarnish 6y agoPress Ctrl-D to mute/unmute. Doesn't excuse the UI, but at least this lets you avoid using it!
- nobleach 6y agoWhich is so odd as CTRL-D is also the bookmark shortcut in Google Chrome. So, say for example, my team has a goto channel where we have our ad-hoc meetings. It's a pain to bookmark it for later use without jumping through the gui.
- three_seagrass 6y agoThere are so many unnecessary clicks in the Google Meet U.I. When I leave a meeting, can you please stop asking me for feedback every time and just take me back to the main meet screen? It would be so easy just to put that small dialogue box on the main meet screen rather than prompt me to click the button to return.
- folmar 6y agoI guess not a lot of people use the main screen at all. It only hass a minicalendar and you probably have another calendar application anyway.
- MarkyC4 6y agoAlso: Consider another shortcut for mute/unmute (cmd + d or ctrl + d is the bookmark shortcut in like every browser... maybe this is intentional?)
- on_and_off 6y agounpopular opinion it seems : in personals 1:1 calls, I love seeing the UI disappear and just have a full screen video of my SO/family member.