Thanks a lot for your comments, Rajeev! Here are my replies:
1. "The frustration starts when as a presenter you launch a screen-sharing or co-browsing session and then look for the whiteboard space. While the annotation space seems to have forever disappeared it is in fact only covered by the screen-sharing or co-browsing window which when launched, superimpose themselves on the default whiteboard space."
a. The reason for this behavior is that we wanted to relevant content to easily be visible in the session. If an instructor is application sharing, we want that to be the window in the front. As soon as application sharing is stopped, users are automatically returned to the whiteboard. It would be great to hear your thoughts on how you think this behavior could be more user-friendly.
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Thank you for your comment. The ideal solution would be integrating a button in the screen-sharing and co-browsing toolbars that allows to open the whiteboard in another window while screen-sharing or co-browsing. Since there is no possibility to annotate the screen while screen-sharing or co-browsing, our preference would be having a whiteboard over screen.
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2. "Only one participant at a time is allowed to talk and there is no option to record vRoom-based audio conversations."
a. Full duplex is available but one person talking at a time is the default. This can be configured by the moderator from Tools > Audio > Allow Simultaneous Talkers
b. You can record an Elluminate session but this is not available in our free vRoom offering.
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a. Perhaps making that command more visible would help, since it is a very important feature.
b. We know that recording is available in Elluminate, but we are reviewing vRoom.
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3. "While not on a par with the seamless approach used by the top contenders in this class, the screen sharing feature works rather smoothly. Novice, non-technical users in particular may encounter some difficulties in identifying some of the commands on the toolbar."
a. I just wanted to mention that we do have tooltips available on every button to assist the user. Just hovering over each tool gives people a quick idea of what they do, but I don't disagree that there's a lot in the application. :)
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Making those control buttons a little bigger and with a more intuitive design would make a great difference. Mousing over them is ok, but it requires time and distraction. Please note than in a tool such as GTM, popup windows appear on the screen automatically to help you doing any process.
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4. "In my tests I also noticed that the maximum size for a single text message is presently set at a mere 512 characters."
a. I didn't even know this was true! I checked and it is true – we'll work on this! :)
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;-)
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5. "Users can load PowerPoint presentations within the whiteboard window and annotate over them. In order to optimize PowerPoint presentations for the vRoom environment you need to convert them by launching this converter. The Converter can currently only be used for PowerPoint 97, 2000, XP and 2003 running on Windows 98, 2000 and XP."
a. You don't have to convert presentations beforehand – you can load them directly from within the session. Just click on the "Load a presentation" button right on the whiteboard tools or go to File->Load->Whiteboard menu item.
b. Users on Mac, Linux, Solaris systems can also load presentations using the above and we support not only Powerpoint but OpenOffice, StarOffice, Image files (included animated GIFs) can be loaded.
c. PDF files can also be loaded but that one does need the "Presentation Wizard" for pre-conversion available on our support page at http://www.elluminate.com/support
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I have to admit that I was deceived by a link in the homepage of vRoom that made me think I had to convert them in order to use them. Thanks for pointing this out.
RE: PDF This is useful information, thanks for sharing it with us.
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6. "whiteboarding facility reflects the limitations and issues of most digital whiteboards offered today with a classic set of annotation tools which reflect no innovation in terms of usability, ease of use and provide little support in helping the presenter communicate more effectively his ideas with such visual instruments."
a. I would respectfully disagree with this comment. Our whiteboard is miles ahead of other whiteboards. In fact, it is one of the components that we get the most positive feedback and I'd love to show you some of the power in a live session.
b. The whiteboard is object oriented allowing objects to be edited once on the whiteboard – moved, resized, layered, grouped, aligned
c. We've had illustrators such as Peter Reynolds show the process of creative drawing right on the whiteboard to over 2000 students at one sitting.
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a. annotation tools do not provide the means to mark-up contents without looking like a first-grader
b. key annotation tools are missing
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7. "The eraser lets users delete either all annotations but not individual marks."
a. This is true for the eraser, but you can very easily use the selection tool (arrow) to click on any individual mark and just press delete to erase that one.
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Thank you for pointing this out. However, I would suggest adding an Undo button.
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8. "to start a co-browsing session within vRoom the presenter enters the URL, pushes the Enter key (because there is no button on the screen)"
a. You can hit OK in the Enter URL dialog box
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I agree, but what you say is possible only once you enter an URL for the first time (i.e. when you actually push the co-browsing button to start a web tour.) When the co-browsing window pops up showing the site, there is no more way to enter the URL of another site by pushing the OK button because the navigation bar doesn’t have any.
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9. "Among the limitations I noticed were the fact that the I could not prepare a list of bookmarks that I wanted to use during my presentation and was forced to type each specific URL during my "live" session."
a. I agree with this limitation, but an easy workaround is to prepare the list in a document and easily copy and paste the URLs as needed using keyboard shortcuts.
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...This would make a great difference to the presenter and in your position I would not downplay the value that this feature can bring to the end user.
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10. "Also I was not enthusiastic about the fact that the navigation window is displayed in a small screen which cannot be enlarged"
a. The Web Tour window can be resized by each individual attendee.
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I agree on that, but the type of window that opens up can be resized only by dragging the right down corner (and this is not the most comfortable way of readjusting the size of a window – especially for non technical users): I would humbly suggest to add also an “enlarge� button in little navigation toolbar on top of the co-browsing window, since it would make the process more intuitive.
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11. "I resort to "screen-sharing", which is though much more bandwidth intensive)."
a. We've done a lot of work on bandwidth management – again, another topic that our customers tell us we "just work" in situations where other web-conferencing tools fail. We have NGOs using Elluminate in VERY remote parts where bandwidth is barely 20Kbps and still able to conduct productive sessions.
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Your comment does not address the significant advantage that co-browsing provides to attendees on a very-low bandwidth connection versus the use of screen-sharing solution. While screen-sharing can work even for people on dial-up, lag and delay before such users can get to see the content can be veeeeery looooooong. Screen sharing takes 10 times more bandwidth than co-browsing, which requires only sending an URL. Users who have a slow connection are likely to prefer co-browsing instead of screen sharing.
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