Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Most articles about “video conferencing best practices” are
fluff pieces (yes, including several written by yours truly). There is one
piece of advice however, that is wrong. It’s bad for the user’s experience and for
video conferencing in general. The most egregious error in these articles is to
“look into the camera” and not at the person you’re talking to.
It's not my fault you put the camera in a stupid place.
If you aren’t looking at the person you’re talking to, then
what is the point of video conferencing? Video conferencing is a way to have
meetings with people who aren’t in your physical location, that’s it. In a
normal meeting would you NOT look at
the person you’re talking to? Of course not, unless you’re a sociopath, but
that’s not the problem we’re talking about here. If you’re instructed over and
over again to look into the camera (wherever it may reside in the room) then
you aren’t getting the benefit of looking at the person you’re supposed to be
having a meeting with. At that point, you may as well turn the camera off and
call the other person on the phone. So much for non verbal communication.
For a real “best practice”, it makes the most sense to place
the camera as close to where you think the person you’re talking to will be on
screen without actually obscuring them or any content you need to see. This
gives you a better experience than just looking into the camera because you can
see the other person and have some semblance of eye contact. So stop looking at
the camera, look at me and let’s have a meeting.
Postscript
Video conference vendors use the trick of looking into the
camera during a demo to make you think there is “perfect” eye contact, even if
the camera is placed in locations nowhere near the participant’s image on
screen. Pay attention to that the next time you’re in a demo.
Bryan
Follow me on Twitter @bryanhellard
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