Friday, October 22, 2010
Let's improve Skype
I decided to write about Skype. The software is one of the most popular in the world. This is very convenient tool for international students to connect to their families. You can chat, talk and see other Skype users for free. Despite these advantages, I've noticed a flaw that all my friends complain about. The problem with the product is that it automatically changes the quality of a connection under some conditions. I've observed that if your channel is too loaded by many applications that consume channel bandwidth, Skype automatically lowers the quality of the connection without any notification of the overwhelmed channel. It would be better if the program could inform a user that he or she should close other applications in order to improve the quality. If a user wants a good connection he or she can follow the instructions, otherwise he or she can ignore it.
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Skype is an extremely useful tool for communication, and I agree with your proposed improvements. What are some other ways this could be implemented? Maybe you could have a "status bar" next to the skype window that shows how loaded up with applications the connection is. Once it gets into the "red zone" or something, maybe it could prompt the user?
ReplyDeleteAlso, should the notifications take into account the individual user's connection speeds? I would imagine that the consumption of bandwidth would be more of a priority for some than others.
I have had a similar problem with video chatting quality but instead of skype it was with ichat. After some research I found there was a bandwidth limit setting in the preferences which helped the problem a little bit in that the program wasn't always trying to get more and more bandwidth and resources. So I understand your quest for quality. I think the programs should realize when quality has dropped to an unacceptable level and give the user some options as to how to increase quality or diagnose itself and fix it automatically.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to happen with many online networking tools and applications. I've never used Skype, but I'm surprised to hear that such a widely-used product doesn't have a connection status bar. I like to play chess with friends online on chess.com and other sites, and whenever I play live chess, there are always two status bars indicating the connection statuses of yourself and the opponent. If Skype were to have those indicators incorporated into it, then I believe that would pretty much solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that skype, should inform the user to close other applications in order to receive continuous connection and good quality. This can be done with the help of a status bar showing continuous connection limit or a pop-up that comes up when too many applications are running and using the bandwidth. I am an international student myself and have witnessed this problem some times so improving this would be a great help to me and other millions of people using skype. Also i am pretty sure that not all people know about the concept of bandwidth, so a little explanation wouldn't harm.
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