Your Microsoft Teams calls could soon look drastically different thanks to an update to one of its most basic features.
The video conferencing service typically displays participants in a call or meeting in a 3×3 view, with everyone in the same size window, even if they join as part of a group from a meeting room or other location.
However, this will now change, and users will now be able to change the default number of participants visible on their screen to the one that best suits their preferences and the size of their monitor.
Microsoft Teams gallery view
Going forward, users can now choose to have a maximum of 4, 9, 16 and 49 participants visible on the screen when in gallery view, allowing them to get a much clearer view of key speakers or view exactly how everyone in attendance reacts. at the same time.
To address the issue of multiple people joining from the same location being undersized, anyone joining from a Microsoft Teams room will now automatically appear in an expanded window. Microsoft says this tweak (shown below) will give remote attendees a much clearer view and better connection and collaboration, meaning they'll be able to quickly identify who's speaking.
Tile sizes can still be customized and modified to the user's taste, but Teams will also seek to prioritize visibility for participants who have their hands raised, with special attention also to the active speaker, improving their visibility so that comments are not lost .
Elsewhere, for those who may feel a little self-conscious about having their own video visible on screen, there's now an option to hide your own tile from gallery view, although this will only hide it from yourself, not other participants . .
“The meeting stage, or gallery, is the core of the virtual meeting experience and can make the meeting more difficult or efficient depending on your needs,” Microsoft's Meera Ajam noted in a blog post announcing the news.
“We're excited to share how we're evolving the default gallery experience in Teams meetings to give you a simpler, more predictable meeting presence, while enabling more controls that let you customize the view to your preferences.”
The new Microsoft Teams gallery view options will be available in a public preview launching in January 2024.
