This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Mute Button Color
Jun
16
2022
I have a disagreement with the people who decide on the color for the mute button for online meetings. The particular incident that brought the color problem to my attention happened to be Google Meet, but other programs such as Zoom also have the same issue. Of note is Microsoft Teams, which does not change color for muted versus unmuted, so it does not have this issue.
The problem is that the color was decided by extroverts.
Before getting into that though, a little bit of background: red is the color that has been chosen by society to mean “unsafe”. Whether it’s the color your car door locks change to when unlocked, or the color revealed on your firearm when it can be fired, things like that are considered unsafe and show a red color in that condition.
Now back to Google Meet. It was my first day back from a vacation, and it was my first meeting using Google Meet that day, so I was out of practice and my actions on the laptop were not back in habit yet. I wanted to be on mute, I saw the mute button was red, so I clicked it to make it not red, then I started talking to Some Wife (I think asking her what her sister-in-law called about) because it wasn’t my part of the meeting.
To me, an introvert, the unsafe mode of an online meeting is when my voice is being broadcast to everyone. Since red means unsafe, red to me means unmute. Not red should mean mute, because mute is safe.
But to the designers of that button or user interface, unsafe must mean no one can hear them, or whatever it is that extroverts want. Because when I clicked the mute button to make it safe, I actually unmuted myself and then everyone could hear me. I was glad other people had the option to mute me, which they did before too long.
On a related note, I’m glad for the programs that put a red border around your screen when you are sharing your screen to the meeting. That is unsafe too.
I was mute and silent, I refused to say even something good, And my pain was stirred up.
Psalm 39:2
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 11:15 pm and has been carefully placed in the Mishaps category.
June 18th, 2022 at 8:47 pm
I guess I haven’t noticed that for teleworking. But I have noticed it with my new car: the gear selected is denoted with a red light. I still panic sometimes as I’m driving it, seeing a red light on the instrument cluster, assuming it means something is going to explode. Then I realize it’s just the light next to the “D.” So I agree with your principle: red should be for things you should be worried about.