The "killer" feature for online meeting logistics
By Eddie Lopez. Friday, 24. April 2009, 14:27:55
Post updated to give webex some love
I've seen 'em all. Webex, Sametime, NetMeeting... all the tools you use to collaborate across sites and their various ilks and incarnations. Yesterday, I saw a feature in Adobe connect (and subsequently in webex) that I thought was the best thing since screen sharing... "Call Me."
In my experience, the biggest hurdles for online meetings are the five, sometimes ten minutes spent at the beginning trying to get everyone up and running in the meeting. Heaven forbid you want to add someone last minute ("hey Kenneth, can you jump on this call? We're talking about interaction design.")
There's always a series of connection information for the audio portion-
...these often add a series of cumbersome logistics as people either announce on the line instructions, forward emails with meeting details, or post them on the video portion of the site (chat windows, etc). Facilitating this process is a "killer feature" in my book.
Adobe takes a stab at it- instead of having to look up a number every time you want to join a conference, you can just remember your own phone number and have the conference call you. You just type in your phone number and hit "call me," and presumably you're off and running. Simple approach to the problem- I'm not sure if competing products offer this feature- but I've never seen it. (Usability Principle: If the user can't find the function, it isn't there)
WebEx does something similar, but they manage to make it sound a little less friendly:
Adobe sticks out in my mind because it was easiest to discover, and clearly dispalayed on their "features" page features page
I've seen 'em all. Webex, Sametime, NetMeeting... all the tools you use to collaborate across sites and their various ilks and incarnations. Yesterday, I saw a feature in Adobe connect (and subsequently in webex) that I thought was the best thing since screen sharing... "Call Me."
In my experience, the biggest hurdles for online meetings are the five, sometimes ten minutes spent at the beginning trying to get everyone up and running in the meeting. Heaven forbid you want to add someone last minute ("hey Kenneth, can you jump on this call? We're talking about interaction design.")
There's always a series of connection information for the audio portion-
- A common conference line
- A meeting identifier
- a passcode (either for leader/participant, or security)
...these often add a series of cumbersome logistics as people either announce on the line instructions, forward emails with meeting details, or post them on the video portion of the site (chat windows, etc). Facilitating this process is a "killer feature" in my book.
Adobe takes a stab at it- instead of having to look up a number every time you want to join a conference, you can just remember your own phone number and have the conference call you. You just type in your phone number and hit "call me," and presumably you're off and running. Simple approach to the problem- I'm not sure if competing products offer this feature- but I've never seen it. (Usability Principle: If the user can't find the function, it isn't there)
WebEx does something similar, but they manage to make it sound a little less friendly:
Adobe sticks out in my mind because it was easiest to discover, and clearly dispalayed on their "features" page features page
WIDGETIZE
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