Why would anyone in their right minds still use MS Teams?

You’d think in our world of instant feedback, a tech giant like Microsoft would have learnt from past mistakes by now. But no, they have still managed to screw up the Teams software massively, and painfully with an awful User Experience (UX). It’s littler wonder that I much prefer Zoom or even the battery-draining Google Meet. Let me tell you why:

Who on earth came up with the Identity Management concept for Teams?

Ideally, I’d like to open the desktop app with my personal identity, the very same one I created when I first signed on. Then I’d select the team I’d like to work, chat or video-conference with.

In reality, it isn’t and hasn’t been so straightforward.

Here’s one of many annoying experiences I’ve had. In my work, I deal with multiple corporations concurrently, and all of them use Teams (poor chaps!). One of them makes me go through the extra pain of working within their own virtual private network (VPN). And while most of them create accounts for me, thankfully, they still send meeting invitations to my own personal email address.

Now, here’s the kicker: what do you think happens when I open such an invitation on Google Calendar from the wrong browser? It’s not a straightforward answer; there’s a certain amount of randomness involved. Thanks to a forehead-slapping, idiotically horrible UX that goes awry when you use multiple web browsers at the same time. For instance, it is normal for me to employ Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Vivaldi concurrently.

When authenticating on Teams, it apparently relies on the default system browser, which is Safari in my case, to establish the connection, bake and store certain cookies. However, brown matter hits the fan when I opt to initiate a Teams web session on Chrome (e.g. when opening a calendar event). My MacOS, being rather astute, detects the existence of the Teams app on my computer and recommends that I access my messages through it to “enhance” the user experience. This is when things get even more convoluted. Teams gets all smart ass and uses the cookie baked for the Safari identity while trying to connect my Chrome identity! Evidently, this results in a software state of bewilderment, making me twice as confused when Teams ends up in a death-loop or simply “encounters an issue” while trying to authenticate my credentials.

And since I’m aware of this, I have to clear my cookies in Safari before logging in. Oh, how I relish the idea of taking all these extra steps outside the MS Teams environment each time!

Now, who came up with the all-in-one-page threaded discussion idea?

The chat function in Teams is probably the worst I’ve ever used. I suspect that Microsoft probably doesn’t want anyone to love it by making sure it’s cumbersome in every way possible.

Let’s say I start topic A, and someone else starts topic B. Both discussions get displayed on the same page. So, if B gets all the action, it’s fine, and the last message is immediately accessible, just like in WhatsApp or Discord.

But here’s where it gets messy: let’s say after a lengthy exchange on B, suddenly, the discussion on A picks up. Now, I gotta scroll back up and figure out what happened earlier. It’s like going back in time to another topic and handling it alongside the “present” one. Sorry, but I don’t dig these Quantic Chat Room vibes.

And while I’m ranting on about the chat function, who on earth thought that collapsing all the messages by default was a brilliant idea? The number of actions needed to get to a specific point within the conversation is just insane.

I feel like an afterthought as a MacBook user.

I don’t know how Teams behaves on Windows, but on OSX, it feels like a sluggish app built on a Web view. It even crashes like a bad website and loves redirects. Sometimes it even gets stuck in a redirecting loop.

So tell me, who out there actually enjoys using Teams? If you do, you must be part of a bunch of masochists who don chains, wear leather and have a penchant for painful foreplay. Or have simply be forced into submission. You have my sympathy if you fall in the latter group. I can’t help but seriously wonder who gets turned on by Teams because when the subject comes up, people either tell me they hate it or give me some vague excuse about a corporate decision.

So hey, corporations! Yes, you. Both big and small. Isn’t it your CTO’s job to improve productivity by putting forward user-friendly software? Why oh why are they advocating Microsoft Teams!