Leading provider of communication and collaboration solutions, Cisco, recently announced a slew of updates to their pioneering Webex Teams collaboration tool. Cisco recently decided to update its design strategy across its Collaboration app portfolio, to ensure that users could enjoy a more consistent experience from end-to-end. The design update hopes to ensure that Cisco users will get the same familiar meeting, messaging and calling experience on any app or device.
The update to Cisco Webex Teams is due to arrive today (29th of August) and features a range of changes to the user interface that you'll see when you log into the system.
The New Webex Layout and Navigation
To align with the various other tools in the Cisco portfolio, the company has announced that they will be making a few changes to the Cisco Webex Teams layout. For instance, your avatar and menu will now be on the first column on the left-hand side of the app. This is where users can access people insights profiles, change their presence status, and update their preferences.
The first column on the left-hand side will also feature a new "Home" icon. Instead of Home, that button has been updated to a "Chat" icon, while all other buttons remain the same.
Cisco knows how important it is for employees to be able to communicate and place calls quickly from their collaboration tools. For this reason, the in-space activity menu is changing too. Actions, like making a call or sharing a screen, will be just a click away. Additionally, these actions will be in the space header, while less common activities remain in the space menu. Additionally, the icon for the space menu is changing to a three-dot ellipsis. As Cisco continues to add more integrations, content, and activities to Webex Teams, the experience will continue to be optimised accordingly.
Additionally, the top of the app now looks sleeker and neater than it did before, which is great for people who love a beautiful piece of software.
Cisco Webex Teams Themes
Another point worth noting in the Cisco Webex Design upgrade is that the app's light theme will be changing slightly. The column on the left where the avatar will be is going to be dark at all times. The second column, where the space list is, will change slightly too, to a different shade of grey. Cisco wanted to give users a theme that felt similar to the Jabber 12.7 experience.
In September, the updated light mode will become the default option for Webex Teams users, giving Teams and Jabber users the same consistent experience. Following these changes, Cisco will also be keeping their black and white theme available for user preferences. Later in 2019, Cisco plans on consolidating the theme options to just two choices, featuring the light mode, and the current dark mode. By the end of the year, the black and white style may no longer be available.
Calling Enhancements in Cisco Webex Teams (Unified CM) - Windows and Mac[/caption]
