Make prompts / prompt transitions more salient

[JamesPHoughton]

From participating in pilots, there is some concern that participants may just continue with their discussion instead of moving through the assigned prompts. (Is this a bug, or a feature?)

Currently we can give a "bell" chime when the next prompt displays - do we want to do more?

Options

1. Cut away the existing prompt for 5 seconds and replace it with a bold message that says "Next prompt in 5 seconds".
2. In the pre-discussion information page, we could play the ding sound, and tell participants that it will sound when the topic is about to change.

[xehu]

I wonder if there's also a way to give participants a quick buffer to transition the topic, like --- 'hey, the topic is about to change! wrap up your discussion now!'

[willschulz]

I like the idea of explicitly notifying participants that the a new prompt is coming, but if the underlying issue is that people don't pay enough attention to the prompts, they might ignore the notification too.

I have two suggestions:

1. Add flashing colors to draw participants' attention to new prompts (this would probably require changing from github-flavored markdown).
2. Instead of having a "bell" chime, have a Siri-like voice actually say something like "A new discussion question is coming in 30 seconds. Please wrap up what you're saying, and get ready to change topics."