A question of perspective

Google Meet has a much underappreciated (and under-fiddled-with) feature. You know how it seems to adjust layout as more people join your call? It tries to be smart but it turns out, you can be much smarter.

Four of me! What could be more annoying?

The three perspectives

Sidebar

Sidebar is "normal" if you are mostly in bigger meetings. For screens with big resolutions, sidebar will add more camera feeds.

Spotlight

Spotlight is for intensely ~~staring~~ concentrating.

Tiled

Tiled is the best. Period.

Side by side

Side by side is like sidebar, but better. I don't understand why you can't chose it yourself - it is only available when somebody presents.

Auto adjustment

How auto adjustment works: the full rules

1-2 participants: Spotlight

3-5 participants: Tiled.

Screen sharing with nobody speaking: Spotlight.

Screen sharing while speaker has camera on: Side by side.

Screen sharing while speaker has camera off: Spotlight.

Pinning somebody*: Spotlight

*nobody can see you pinned somebody for yourself)

Who gets displayed?

People with enabled cameras get displayed
People who spoke last get displayed.

Turn on your cameras, folks. Be professional.

The layout lifecycle (example)

1st person joins (you): Spotlight. You see yourself. (Looking good today!)
2nd person joins: Spotlight. You see the other person. Looking almost as good.
3rd person joins: Tiled. The screen splits and you see them side by side.
4th person joins: Tiled. The screen looks like a little pyramid.
5th person joins: Tiled. The screen looks nicely filled.
6th person joins: Sidebar. Man, tiled was so much nicer! Why is the current speaker's video so big now?
You fix the screen on John from accounting because he's looking cute wearing that scarf. It's not your fault he never speaks up so you the camera doesn't show him. Spotlight (on John).
You realize that people behind you can see you're being awkward and unpin John. Sidebar.
Alexis is presenting quarterly whatevers, you barely realized (guess why). Side by side.
While Alexis presents, two people drop off (probably asleep), you're down to 4 participants. Alexis stops screen sharing. Tiled.

How you can do better

Choose your layout

Meet gives you the option to chose a layout. By default, Meet will select "Auto" and follow the rules laid out above. If you prefer another layout (I strongly prefer "tiled" view, always), you can chose that. Unfortunately, you need to set that in every Meet. But hey, it's three clicks and my Meets are 30-60 minutes each (not 25, not 50¾...). I'd rather click three times than be annoyed for an hour.

Pinning people

Clicking the sidebar reveals all participants. There you can mute, kick out and pin people. When you pin somebody, you focus the camera on them - other people will not know that you are doing this. I have found this very useful if one participant is a big room that has to mute itself, for example.

Turn on your camera (and ask others to do so)

Remote working is nice and all, but can only work if we are transparent. Nobody wants to go back to the time of dial-in numbers. There is a difference if you can see who you are talking to or not - this is collaboration, not a confessionary. Help make remote working perfectly acceptable in all corners by showing your face and by asking everybody do so too.

Here is to more fun in meetings. If you would like some tips on how to schedule better meetings, there have been plenty of posts about that topic too - like what calendar fields can be changed without triggering reschedules or how to use each field to its fullest or how to use colors and icons in Calendar. Or maybe that's all too much and all you want is tips on how to have less meetings. We've got you covered. Thanks for reading!

#meetPublished 2020-03-12 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2020-03-12 by Holger Matthies.Written listening to Eluvium - Don't get any closer

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