Print this page
Published in News

Microsoft doubles the speed of Teams desktop client

by on29 March 2023


Also claims it uses half of its system resources

Software King of the World Microsoft has previewed an improved Teams desktop client for Windows which it claims will be “twice as fast while using half the system resources."

Apparently, it will prevent user confusion and improve interface consistency.

All this is being billed as a "new era for Teams", and the new client delivers "up to two times faster performance while using half the memory and "compatibility with a broader range of computers."

Teams product marketing chap Anupam Pattnaik wrote: “To optimise navigation, we prioritised the user interactions that occur most frequently, including switching between different chats, channels, and activities."

"On average, a typical user switches ten thousand times per month, emphasising the importance of a faster and more responsive experience," he explained. "With new Teams, switching between chats, channels, and activities will be instant, without waiting for content to load."

In a post from Microsoft Design, the company admitted that those improvements were needed because Microsoft got things wrong in its original Teams client.

Microsoft design chaps Thad Scott and Colin Day said that a consistent source of customer confusion was rooted in basic UX problems. Initially, channel posts followed a chat-like model, where new posts and comments came from the bottom up. [Does he mean that people are talking out of their bottoms? Ed]

"Threaded conversations like this were a unique differentiator for Teams. But this is where we needed to be humble and admit mistakes based on feedback. Differentiator or not – the model confused people. It looked like chat, but behaved like threads."

"Instead of logging in and out of different tenants and accounts, you can now stay signed in across them all—receiving notifications no matter which one you are currently using."

Vole is targeting the general availability of new Teams later this year in 2023 with macOS following even later.

 

Last modified on 29 March 2023
Rate this item
(1 Vote)