Products · Broad category
Video conferencing apps
Raised as a usability problem by 23 people on Hacker News over 5 years (2020–2024), in 23 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Video calls lag too much, making real-time conversation hardUnreviewed
20202026- Delays and poor audio mixing make people unable to talk spontaneously over each other2024-07-14
- Delays and turn-taking gaps make conversations much slower than in person2023-02-17
- Delay in video calls causes exhaustion and makes it hard to focus2022-05-19
Uneven microphone quality makes some voices muffled and hard to understandUnreviewed
20202026- Chat apps don't clearly show mic status, so users forget they're unmuted, especially across monitors.2022-04-13
- Participants have differing microphone quality, so some voices are muffled and hard to understand2021-10-13
- Video call apps silently raise microphone volume, forcing a constant tug-of-war with the user2021-07-14
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 24 complaints
- Delays and poor audio mixing make people unable to talk spontaneously over each other2024-07-14
- Getting logged in and setting one's name permanently is a recurring problem2024-05-26
- Self-view camera preview shows by default and must be turned off separately in each app2023-09-22
- Delays and turn-taking gaps make conversations much slower than in person2023-02-17
- Captions must be turned on every time a meeting is joined; settings are not remembered2022-09-18
- Hard to find anyone else on the app, so the user gave up2022-06-22
- Delay in video calls causes exhaustion and makes it hard to focus2022-05-19
- Bad audio and delays make calls unpleasant and irritating to follow2022-05-03
- Chat apps don't clearly show mic status, so users forget they're unmuted, especially across monitors.2022-04-13
- Users can't find the camera button or accidentally turn it off by double-clicking2022-03-15
- Controls shift position so clicking to hide the attendee list hits the hang-up button2021-12-08
- Participants have differing microphone quality, so some voices are muffled and hard to understand2021-10-13
- Cannot make eye contact with others, so conversation feels confusing2021-08-30
- Video call apps silently raise microphone volume, forcing a constant tug-of-war with the user2021-07-14
- Mute buttons in video conference UIs are hard to decipher and find2021-07-06
- Swipe-to-answer gesture is counterintuitive, so elderly users struggle for months to learn it2021-04-18
- Video chat from a computer has about a 30 second lag and is unusable2021-01-07
- Video calls lag too much, making real-time conversation hard2020-11-18
- Screen share lags several seconds behind audio, making references hard to follow2020-10-26
- Can't tell at a glance if muted; must hunt for mute button; input/output sources hidden in confusing settings2020-09-30
- Can't tell at a glance whether muted; must hunt for mute button2020-09-30
- High latency makes people talk over each other in multi-person conversations2020-08-31
- Screen makes the commenter pause to work out which button to press2020-06-23
- Video chat UIs are confusing, with auto-hiding controls and non-standard icons2020-04-08