The four buttons on a call
Find the microphone, the camera, the chat and the way out — and work out whose end the silence is at.
They sit along the bottom of the screen, or appear when you move the mouse or touch the screen. Every program uses roughly the same pictures.
One small mercy: in Zoom, holding the Space bar unmutes you for exactly as long as you hold it down. It saves hunting for the microphone button to say one word.
Key points
- Microphone, camera, leave, chat — four buttons and that is the lot
- Check your own microphone first, because it is nearly always that
- One person wrong, it is their end. Everybody wrong, it is yours
What to remember
- The bar along the bottom holds everything. Microphone on the left, the way out in red, and the rest is decoration.
- Can you hear the others? Yes — then it is their microphone. No — then it is your sound. That one question settles nearly all of it.
- One person wrong: their end. Everybody wrong: your end. That single rule sorts nearly every video call there has ever been.
Try this
Next time you are on a call, press the microphone button twice on purpose and watch what the picture does. Knowing which state is which, before anybody is waiting for you to speak, is most of the panic gone.
Practice: The four buttons on a call. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.