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My biggest problem with the design of Google Meet is that the buttons are horribly inconsistent. The big fat red phone button means "click this button to achie
by dheera 6y ago
My biggest problem with the design of Google Meet is that the buttons are horribly inconsistent.
The big fat red phone button means "click this button to achieve the state that is depicted on the button (hung up)".
Okay, so good so far, by clicking a button, you get whatever is pictured on it. Makes sense.
One would thus think that similarly, a picture of a muted microphone on a button means "click to mute" and a picture of an unmuted microphone on a button means "click to talk" and this is backwards from what they actually mean.
- Sebb767 6y agoTo be fair to Google, though, this is a cultural problem. The mute and camera buttons depict the current state in basically all telephony applications (see Skype, Zoom, Discord ...) and the red "hang up" button is also the expected form. Yes, it's a bit inconsistent, but I can see why they make the buttons inconsistent within themselves rather than breaking user expectations. This does not excuse the placement, though.
- christophilus 6y ago100% of the time, I get confused as to whether or not I’m muted. This really should have text in addition to an icon.
- dheera 6y agoOr alternatively, make it a toggle on/off switch with a LED light sort of indicator, which would be super clear without localization because that's how mic on/off switches are in the real world.