[Tools-discuss] Meetecho misfeatures and a problem they can't fix.

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

I want to apologize in advance for the likely tone of this note.
I'm tired, I just had to participate in a meeting that should
have been cancelled, I have a paper for IGF that I need to
revise before I present it in a few hours, and I'm generally in
an impatient and foul mood.

(1) Meetecho needs to be much more careful about assumptions
about screen geometry.  I'm sitting on front of two monitors,
one 27 inch class, the other 24 inch class and with slightly
different aspect ratios and, because of some eyesight issues
(see below) they are operating at different magnification levels
with the smaller monitor operating at higher magnification.
When Meetecho is started in Chrome (which, for all I know, is
part of the problem) on the smaller monitor, the frame pops up
to "allow" me to test my equipment, the tests work fine, but
then there is no way to dismiss that frame, making it impossible
to actually join a session.   The button to continue with the
session is at the bottom of the frame and the bottom of the
frame is offscreen.  The frame cannot be scrolled, resized, or
moved (either within the Meetecho window or elsewhere), so no
button.

Now, because of greater than 100% magnification (and that not
working terribly well in Windows), Windows not dealing with
screens with different properties and geometry exceptional well,
and possibly  browser issues (I have no way to know without a
lot of testing that isn't going to happen this week), I admit
that my environment is hostile to any "normal" assumptions about
screen layouts and geometry.  However, Meetecho ought to be more
robust against such things, especially if neither it nor the
IETF are going to have an eyesight quality requirement for
participation.  If that frame could be moved or resized (ideally
both) there would be no problem.  If it could be closed by the
usual "X" icon in the upper right corner as well as the button
at the bottom, no problem.  But, as it is, unusable in that part
of my environment (this works fine in Firefox on my bigger
screen).

(2) At IETF 108, there was considerable confusion (and wasted
time) because it wasn't clear whether the chair giving someone
the virtual floor unmuted video and/or audio.  This time,
whether I like the solution or not, the confusion is eliminated
and people have to unmute themselves, audio and video
separately.  However, the buttons to do that are quite small,
even on my large screens, and close to buttons that do other
things.  Moreover, it is still hard enough to tell whether one
is muted or not and so muting when one intends to unmute was a
common occurrence in the last WG I was in (not just me).  This
needs to stop.  Those two icons (and the "place in queue" one,
which has similar issues) need to be large enough that someone
with mild to medium vision difficulties can find and interpret
them.  They need to clearly indicate (in non-subtle ways)
whether video or audio are on or off.  Ideally there should be a
mechanism to turn both on and off together.  And they need to be
separated enough from other icons that someone using a
touchscreen with fat fingers doesn't get the wrong one or more
than one (not my issue, but an obvious one).

(3) With the understanding that my vision is worse in the wee
hours of my morning than during more normal working times, the
combination of Meetecho's screen layout and presenter choices
about how much information to put on a slide, type styles and
sizes, etc., can easily make the content of slides unreadable
(more easily for me than others, perhaps).  The IETF's
traditional solution to that problem has been to insist that
slides be posted well in advance of meetings (days, not hours)
so that those who might have problems seeing them onscreen can
download them and make them available in other ways.  That rule
has apparently been abandoned.   Neither Meetecho nor any other
online meeting technology I can think of can solve those
problems.  But, if the IESG cannot be convinced to go back to
enforcing the prior availability rule -- "no posted slides
either no slides in the presentation or no presentation" and "no
chair slides posted before the meeting, no meeting", maybe the
tools team should be considering a semi-mandatory application to
check slides for plausible visibility of text.  Even if there
were no other reasons for getting things posted well in advance,
consider this a request to make reasonable accommodations for
those of us who are somewhat to significantly vision-impaired.

   john