Microsoft Teams is trying to fix accidental hand raises

If you’ve ever had the awkward displeasure of interrupting a Microsoft Teams meeting by accidentally tapping the Raise Hand feature, I have some good news for you. Microsoft is redesigning its online meetings software, which will move the raise hand button from the main toolbar and allow users to customize the controls displayed there.

The update was announced on Microsoft 365 roadmapIt is expected to be released sometime in June of this year. The changes will group the raise hand feature within button interactions to “reduce misclicks,” according to Microsoft, which is useful because it’s easy to confuse the two functions at a glance. This should prevent Teams users from disabling calls by raising a hand when they actually want to send emoji reactions, or simply by missing the intended button.

New customizations will also enable users to pin, unpin, and rearrange controls on the meeting toolbar, and the “Leave” button will be clearly separated on the right! – suggesting that this is also intended to address people who accidentally hang up on calls or frantically search for how to leave when meetings end. Microsoft hasn’t provided any images of the anticipated redesign, but says it’s “designed to be faster and easier to use,” even if it “may look different at first.”