Let your guests and other presenters know who is speaking at which time with visual indicators, such as avatars and colored borders
New as of 09/20/2022: In Interactive mode, you can show avatars for presenters and attendees who do not have their camera or microphone turned on.
During a webinar or virtual event session with multiple speakers, it's important that guests and other presenters know who is speaking at which time. Without a clear idea of who has the floor, it's easy for presenters to accidentally talk over one another and adversely affect the listening experience.
The easiest way to identify who is speaking is by checking the video display panel in the center-left area of the webinar room.
When a presenter is using their webcam, a square displaying their video will appear in this space. The presenter's video is present whether the presenter is speaking or not. So when a presenter using video has the floor, everyone else can see that person speaking in real-time.
But by default, participants using only their mics will not appear in the video display panel when they are speaking. In this case, other presenters and participants cannot identify who's speaking, which can lead to confusion and unnecessary interruptions.
However, BigMarker users can enable audio-only speakers to be represented in the video by a text avatar. When this feature is activated, an avatar representing the speaker will appear in the main video display, but only while they are speaking. An example is displayed below.
(By default, this appears without a colored border, but hosts have the option to add a border to this display if desired, which will be covered later in the article.)
How do I adjust speaker displays in my webinar or virtual event?
1. Log into your webinar and select the Manage Webinar tab.
2. Staying in this tab, scroll down, or use the CTRL-F function, to locate Audience Engagement. Locate Show who is speaking and toggle it on.
3. To display the avatar of speakers that are using audio-only, toggle Display Speaker Avatar when audio-only on. Once this feature is active, the speaker's avatar will display in the webinar room while they are speaking, even if they are only using their audio.
4. In Interactive Mode, hosts can have avatars for both attendees and presenters even when cameras and microphones are turned off. Select Display all attendees and presenter avatars for an initial avatar to show on the screen.
5. Hosts also have the option of adding a colored border around this avatar (see the picture above for an example). To do this, select Who is speaking color. From the color picker that appears, select your desired display color.
6. Hosts can choose the length of time that a speaker needs to be talking before the colored border appears around the avatar. Next to Talking duration before highlight, choose the length of time that a speaker needs to talk before the border appears.