We've completely redesigned the in-meeting experience to help make every Vowel meeting more familiar, inclusive, and worthwhile.
Below is a guide to where your go-to actions have moved, and a look at some of the new features that give you more control over how you show up, help you stay present, and make your voice heard.
Here's a tl;dr of what's new (and changed):
1. A more familiar, streamlined navigation
2. Comments and Raise Hand are replacing Chat
Before
After
🗺️ A more familiar, streamlined navigation
All key actions, like sharing your screen, reacting, and highlighting key moments can be found along the bottom of your window, so they're always within reach.
Recording is at bottom left. Go off the record at any time.
Mic / Camera / Screen Share organized together.
Reactions have moved from the bottom of the notes panel and now accompanied by three new features: Comment, Raise Hand, and Highlight.
Side panel controls enable you to quickly access notes, transcript, sharing, and meeting info.
⚡ Quick tip: Hover over any button to learn its keyboard shortcut for even faster access.
📣 Make your voice heard with Comments and Raise Hand
✌️ Bye, Chat
We found through research that folks feel distracted by chat and knowing that people are sending less-than-productive DMs. Yet, text-based communication can play an important role in making virtual meetings more inclusive. That's where our new Comments feature comes in.
👋 Hello, Comments!
Next to reactions you can now add comments. A comment appears on your meeting tile until you dismiss it or you type something else. Unlike chats that disappeared the moment the meeting ended, comments live alongside reactions in on-demand recording timeline.
We're eager to hear what you think about Comments and how you'd like to see them evolve.
✋ Raise hand
Let the speaker know you'd like to chime in verbally without interrupting the flow. Click the hand icon or tap H on your keyboard to raise or lower your hand. You can also see the hand raise queue in meeting info panel.
⚡ Power move: Combine private notes with a hand raise. Toggle to private notes and make note of your question so you don't forget it by the time it's your turn in the queue.
👩🏫 Bring your whole self with Backgrounds, Pronouns, and Skin Tones
Virtual backgrounds are here! Quell the background chaos or bring more of your personality to meetings with virtual backgrounds. Select from blur, one of our presets, or upload your own.
Set your pronouns and emoji skin tone From the new profile panel, set your pronouns and decide to display them on your meeting tile. Pick a default skin tone for reactions.
Hide Self View is accessible at any time on your video tile.
Plus: We've also made names appear on tiles by default so it's easier to remember who's who in meetings with new people.
🖋️ Mark key moments with Bookmarks
When great moments happen in a conversation, use Bookmark (keyboard shortcut: "B") to mark the timeline. Like Comments, this is another feature we're really excited to evolve with your feedback. Try it out and share your thoughts.
Here are a few other more minor improvements you may find interesting:
Toggle between Speaker View and Grid View is another great way to stay focused on the action.
You can now display real time talk time on everyone's tiles to help you include more participants in the conversation.
Private notes now have a dark colored background to help you better distinguish where you're typing.
Questions? Ideas? Feedback?
Use chat to send us your thoughts!