Making eye contact

There are many benefits to making eye contact with people (an interesting BBC article on eye contact).

Unfortunately, for most of us, our cameras are not in the centre of our screen. So most of the time we look like this …

Here are some tips to help you look closer to the camera – without looking too weird!

On computers and laptops

Set up your Zoom window so that the person you’re talking to, is just below your camera (with a thin yellow border). So when you look at their video, you’ll be almost looking directly at the camera – and it will look to others that your looking them in the eye (as much as possible).

You can do this using one or both of these methods:

• In Gallery view, move the video of the person you’re talking to, to top centre (see instructions below)
• Change the size and shape of your Zoom window (watch this short video – its for PCs, but Macs are similar))

Moving videos around the screen in Zoom

If you have Zoom version 5.2.2 or higher, you can change the video order on your Gallery view.

Note: this does NOT work when the Host (or co-Host) has spotlighted (“fixed a spotlight on”) one or more people.

When you move your mouse cursor over a video, it will turn into a “grab hand” …

Then simply click-and-drag that video to a different position …

You can “release” this custom order and revert to the default order – via the View menu (top right)

On tablets and phones

Not so easy on these.
Make sure you know exactly where the camera is. Then remember to look towards it as much as possible.
Consider marking the camera with a small red sticker.

Teleprompters

If you Google ‘eye contact Zoom’ – what you’ll find, is lots of videos about using and creating your own teleprompter.
These work really well. But the tips above are much quicker and easier for most of us.