Video Conferencing: Honestly, I am listening!

[nash]

With most people using dual monitors allowing them to multi-task, is it acceptable to openly show this type of distraction when in a Video conference?

[roberto]

Most people have their laptop and a desktop monitor these days. If you place them just right (one above the other is a good configuration), you can be on a video conference while still monitoring e-mails, and it still looks like you are looking at the screen.

The dead give-away is if you start banging away at your keyboard and forget to mute!

The real distraction culprits are all the pop-ups for new IMs, new e-mails, web-page pop-ups/flash sliding graphics, etc....

Then to make it even more distracting there are different sounds when a pop-up comes up....ding-ding...bling-bling....All of this just to make sure you look away from the screen towards the pop-up.

If the pop-up piques your curiosity (why is my colleague pinging me, oooh...that MSN headliner looks interesting, etc...), BAM! you are now "multi-tasking" - one thing productive, one not so much.

Is this acceptable (rhetorically)?...I say no! ....But you can't blame the user either, really. They are just another victim falling prey to our dual-monitor world of more desktop space is better society.

What we need: An Exclusivity Clause Feature. Turn it on, and only one thing remains active. No pop-ups, distracting sounds, etc... Perhaps even let the video conferencing/audio conferencing client trigger the Exclusivity Clause.

How's that for an idea!

[nash]

Awesome idea. We could give certain processes higher priorities than others. They could stop other applications from becoming distinct distractions. Almost like a content pop-up blocker or notification popper. It could alert if the application lost focus.

Or how about a feature where if it detected your face (eyes) were not looking at the screen for a fixed amount of time it would generate an alert.

To be honest - I could do with the "Exclusivity Clause Feature" in everyday life. :-)

[roberto]

Or how about a feature where if it detected your face (eyes) were not looking at the screen for a fixed amount of time it would generate an alert.

Not sure if I would want another "alert"

But a "distract-o-meter" gauge! Now that would be something unique.

Imagine if the video conferencing client tracked how much time your eyes remained focused on the video conference call screen. As the call progresses, the gauges against each participant fills up accordingly.

At the end of the call we would all know who were naughty and who were nice.