Skype for iOS is now apparently five times faster than the current app. It also looks about three times better, and that’s great. Even if FaceTime and Hangout has taken over for most of my video conferencing needs, Skyping is still the Xerox of video conferencing (my mom still refers to FaceTime as Skyping so there you have it), and everyone has it. Yet no one is online on it. You might have a different experience, but most of my Skype calls often starts with a phone call, SMS or mail.
I might be reaching here, but it could have something to do with the desktop interface. Skype is hands down one of the most cluttered, noisy and clumsy 2000s app interfaces on my Mac, seemingly lacking any direction of what it’s there for and where it’s going (Microsoft acquisitions rarely do).
Clutter
Judging just by the main interface – what does this app do? …If you have never used it before, what would you use this app for? Even if you know it has something to do with video conferencing, the design gives no clue of this. Instead, the default screen prompts you to connect to Facebook… to – I guess – update… your Skype status – on Facebook?
The rest of the interface is a mess of small and big buttons, super tiny and enormous typography, and of course the aforementioned noisy social media integration. It’s also impossible to make the window smaller – my main gripe of even having the app open. (I researched this, and tried downloading the Skype Business Edition as some discussion forums suggested this would do away with the social media nagging window, but alas – it’s PC only.)
I won’t go into any more detail, let’s just say that the desktop version of Skype doesn’t feel like the home of the worlds largest video conferencing app, accounting for 70 million+ video conferences per day (numbers from 2013). My first tip would be to do away with the 2000s and start over with a clean slate and a focus of core services. 2003 is 11 years ago these days, and people are starting to notice.
