Working from home? Here are 5 tips to improve your video calling experience

The Covid-19 outbreak has forced countries to enforce a lockdown to prevent the virus from spreading. This has made working from home the new way of living and video calls the new way of interacting with colleagues.

But connecting with colleagues using video calls can be a bit tricky. From dogs bark and ambient noise to lighting issues, a number of things can go wrong. But worry folks, Google has a bunch of tips for you that will help you handle video calls like a pro.

Here's what Google recommends:

-- Choose the right environment: Google says that it is important to choose the right backdrop while you are on a video call. Choose a plain wall and avoid windows that will provide too much backlight. Place your laptop on a steady platform for the duration of the call.

-- Invite anyone, anytime: Emails are the best way of conversing when you are having an active conversation. And so, if you feel that your email chat is going too long, instantly set up a meeting and invite people within or outside of your organization to join.

-- Turn on captions: If you are in a loud space or if you don't have 'super-fancy headphones' or if there's a lot of noise in the speaker's audio, just turn on Meet's live caption feature to display captions in real time.

-- Only share what you mean to share: No one wants to be in a situation where they accidentally end up showing their email to their colleagues while sharing their screens. To avoid a similar situation, share your window and not your screen.

-- Change the screen layout: One of the coolest features that Meet has is the ability to change the layout of the video call. Google says that if someone's showing slides, but there's a lively discussion happening in the office, you can switch your layout to focus on the people in the office, rather than the presentation.