Adium+Video

First thought - this is nice but pretty space-consuming… Did you study how other video chat services interfaces work?

I think style-wise you are successfully following Adium’s look and feel. Maybe you should lay out a user scenario and design according to it, like:

• I want to initialize a video chat I do ____
• I am waiting for the other side to answer, it looks like ____
• The other side answers it looks like ____
• I want to also use the text chat I do ____
• I want to go full screen I do ____
• I am on video my partner isn’t, it looks like ____
• I am not on video my partner is, it looks like ____
• I want to hang up the video chat it looks like ____
• My partner hanged up on me, it looks like ____
• Somebody is inviting me to a chat, it looks like ____
• and so on…

This will help you think of the interaction design.

I know Skype decouples the video and chat windows, this has its plus and minuses but avoids the space issue.

Anyway, keep up the good work, you’re on the right direction.

I wondered about the space too… maybe you can stack everything up vertically or leave the video window as a “slide out” option?

Ya it might be an idea to compare skype and ichat videochats and take from them what you think works good and what doesn’t, ie the de-coupling from the typed chatter etc. Reverse engineer their approaches to create a better interface.

yeah, the space thing is a problem. in your design, are you showing people using instant messaging AND video at the same time? would people really do that? i like the idea of a “slide out” option but to be honest, i think if the chat area left altogether it would still be successful. just be sure that it’s obvious how to get back to the chat area. good job marce!

Hello!
So, the think that I needed to figure out was what was it exactly what it’ll do. I had the idea of the old Windows msn way of using the vide, and that’s all I knew, but now, after researching and using iChat, I found out the new wonders of video!!