On/Off States of Video/Microphone are confusing
under review
M
Matt Zanchelli
When video or audio is on, it displays a green icon. The icon looks half-transparent as it displays in a very light green color.
When video is off, it displays a _gray_ video icon with a slash.
When audio is off, it displays a _red_ icon with a slash.
Why is the audio red when it’s off, but video is gray when it’s off? The red color seems to indicate some kind of warning and reminds me of an “on air” warning. It’s unclear whether the button represents the current state, or represents the action that the button will perform. In other words, is the audio currently off, or will pressing this button turn it off?
L
Laurent Baumann
under review
L
Laurent Baumann
Hi Matt. The "warning state" on mute is typical of audio / video conference tools, as people that are muted cannot be heard, which regularly cause people to talk for minutes before realizing it. This is why muted state is considered a warning state. We could make the video off red too, but we are not sure warning people that their video is off has the same importance.
The action vs state is definitely interesting. We are following the conference tool standard where the icon represent the state, but we have explored a switch design that makes it a lot clearer. We will definitely take another look at it, thanks!
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Matt Zanchelli
Laurent Baumann: 😯 I like the idea of a switch! I'm always hyper paranoid on my current conference calls (before With) that I might not be muted. Clarity here would definitely be appreciated. I think I could learn to be confident in the control state with just a single icon, but the incongruence with the adjacent Video icon gives me pause and makes me doubt its state.