Transforming the Second Life Experience with Big Spaceship

I put a space for you send an IM chat to people who were connected in the world, and also see the inventory by site and attach items and send people in the world with IM. Upload the inventory through the site would help in that process of not having to enter it send a notice to the group by example.

Well, I just looked over their portfolio. Very impressive. They've had some big impressive gigs in the past.

They must be costing a fair bit to have on board. So this is where the 'screw you OS citizens' money is going. Nice.

LL need to look for premium members and old clients that are thinking to leave and give back the privates land´s that they bought.

We´re giving back 4 openspace; That had grow charges.

A starting balance of $10,000L.

Oh ways to make it easier on new residents?

Here you go:

Attachments. It takes forever to explain prim attachments. It is like a root canal.

So you need to make it something like the edit appearance pane with the avatar model displayed.

Objects that have been attached to the avatar need to have an icon indicating that.
In the screen for attaching objects the objects that have the attachment point set as, for example, the chest, need to be shown as "ready attach" selections. Of course advanced users can select any object to attach to a point and after aligning then on detach the position is stored and that object becomes a "ready attach" qualified object for that attach point.

The user will either select via a list or drag and drop the ready attach objects onto the attach point.

I.e.; it has to be 3 dimensional and aligned with how the brain thinks. If you are going to put on a bracelet it has to be as simple as dropping the bracelet onto the lower arm. Thus why it is necessary to have the "ready attach" qualified objects available.

The existing means of wearing a folder need to be retained as well and perhaps a special drop point in the edit avatar view be available to just drop the folder into the view and all qualified ready attach objects in the folder go where they are supposed to go.

As for how to align attachments well there is a classroom/tutorial opportunity. But that is not first hour experience subject matter.

Personally I don't think this is the right place for this type of feedback as this is just a discussion about a blog announcement. There is already a mailing list for the user interface called SL-UX (https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sl-ux) but that is not specific to first hour experiences. Perhaps a dedicated forum for first hour experience is in order. Or a way to be focused. Oh wait.. it is called the Public Jira. I'll go drop this suggestion in there.

Edit:
pjira meta issue for aggregation of all first hour experience related improvements and defects: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10293

This suggestion has been captured in: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10294

I think this is a good thing.

At the same time, I think it's vitally important to overhaul the systems in place when new users leave the website and go inworld. We need ways that work when people Go to Orientation - I mean Help - Island. We need something done to enhance the new user experiences at the infohubs (particularly Ahern and Waterhead) and we need additional infohubs -- some on the new continents, at Nautilus City, and at Bay City.

It is one thing to get them to open that account -- but they'll never stay if we don't foster them. That fostering starts on Linden Labs brick-faced doorstep.

From my old experiences in web design, I was always told to give someone a reason to read the page in 10 seconds, and a reason to click through in 30 seconds. The same applies here. When they first materialize inworld, they need a positive experience that makes them want to stay.

How about letting people set waypoints, so you can navigate the way you do in Everquest by dropping a series of targets on the ground ahead of you that your avatar follows? This is a lot more convenient than manually walking everywhere, and a lot of people are already familiar with it. I've experimented with implementing these in SL using scripts that push the avatar around but the results were more amusing than useful.

Double-click autopilot helps, but it's buggy as hell - I've had it start me marching off to <0,0,0> because it was targeting something on my HUD!

Hello Katt,

making the first hours on SL easier and more enjoyable and give new users a better orientation is surely a good thing. But grid stability is also a big issue in this 'first hour experience': "You never a get a second chance for a first impression" (pun intended).

I am for a while on SL and I see SL moving forward and changing with new features, new communities and new ideas. That's actually a good thing.
But you should not forget those who helped to created and design this meanwhile big world and sometimes be a bit more considerate when announcing changes.
A lot of people contribute to SL by creating virtual things, help fix bug and suggest ideas via JIRA, help in translation project, work as mentors and many things more.
The internet has become big and attractive by the many people all over the world who have contributed their share. SL has a big potential - but only if there are people and communities which put their shares and ideas in. Treat them as partners and not as milk cows and the community will grow stronger and put their part in to support SL and new users.

A few things to mention in that context:
- Inventory loss is a big issue for customers and merchants. You put the responsibility on the merchants (which have often no chance to verify what has happened)
- Grid stability: February to July this year and august/september last year have been a pain for many
- Ask a customer to file a support ticket on their inventory loss and many just respond: "Why? I either get no answer or a standard text which is not really helpful"
- Helpful pages like http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Inventory_Recovery_Steps are often hard to find (burried within 1000 other pages) but should be part of a "First Aid Package"
- Forcing users to use the website with 80-90% translated pages does not make it more usable - the opposite (JIRA entries wait with no response/reaction until rotten: see for example http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Inventory_Recovery_Steps)
- Many unsolved JIRA entries are unacknowledged for a long time: wishes, ideas and even major bugs.

This does not add to a positive user experience: neither for new nor for old time users.

I really appreciate the steps LL has taken and is going to take, but in my opinion we all have to work on solving certain problems soon - before or while SL grows bigger.

(To say it with Torley's words)
Friendly Greetings, Cobra

Except using something that's compatible with normal chat software like iChat. Borrow a leaf from Google's book, they used XMPP for Google Talk.

Yes, yes, that will really help. With less OS sims, and more and more people, the remaining sims will become even more lagged up! Bring it on! Open the doors wider! Let's invite these newbies into the fold! They will love it! And as customers, bringing in RL money (that they don't have, it's a recession) we will all benefit (we being Linden Lab, from genuine citizens paying back higher tier on the few remaining OS sims struggling to stay open).

This is great news! Wonderful! I adore it!

Now *that's* sarcasm.

Just make Edit Appearance display and let you move existing attachments. Yes, with "snap to" positions like the wrist.

Honestly, I think that a shiny new "web portal" for newbies isn't going to cut the mustard guys. No one reads that stuff. I can't think of the last time I actually read a manual for a game. Generally speaking, if I can't figure it out in the first 20 or so minutes or if it frustrates me to no end, I shelve the game and find something else. People need in-game orientation help, it's hard for a noob to conceptualize the vastness of SL. Fortunately for me, I was around when there was live help and mentors and people who actually just randomly taught stuff on the welcome island. With the exception of live help, that stuff is there, but I think it diminished from it's original glory.

My biggest issue with SL (and has been since their inception) is free accounts. It promotes griefing, bots, lag, simulator abuse, etc.. I'm sure those free accounts have increased your numbers, but I don't know that the influx of people over the last few years has helped the population of SL. Least of all the users who fight worse lag now than ever. I wonder how many inventory server issues have to do with the number of abandoned free accounts? Same with groups, search, etc.. Things were much better back even when it was only $9.99 for a lifetime account. Give them 2 weeks free reign if you must, if the account isn't activated after a month purge it. Of course, I am sure this would cause an uproar initially, but as long as you tell everyone that their current accounts are grandfathered everything will be fine.

You want to help the noobs adjust better? Slick marketing and a website isn't going to help them. I'll give you a list of things that will help.

* Viewer Stability - I don't know about anyone else, but I can take my pick of the list of alternative viewers and have them be infinitely more stable than the one put out by the labs. Unfortunately, most noobs don't know about these viewers at first, and most users don't use them. It doesn't help you to have your viewer crashing randomly for no reason on a new user. First impressions mean a lot.

- There has to be better QA on the viewer releases.
- You need to look at some of the patches the 3rd party guys have done.
- The current system for reporting/solving bugs does not seem to be effective. There has to be another way.


* People helping people - This is a social game/application/virtual world. Humans are (mostly) social by nature. A funky hud and some text might help a couple people to understand the abstract nature of SL, but what people really need is Mentors and Guides. I know there are still some around, but I am not so sure its proportional to the number of residents anymore. Live help was great when it worked, it's a shame it's gone.


* Simulator Stability - Nuff said. But I will say things are slowly improving in this department.


* Reduction of Lag - Same as above, I'm sure it's being improved on.. Somewhere.

* Land - If you got rid of free accounts, maybe you could bring back the free 512m2 land for paying members? Make it non-transferable, bound to the account so that it's not a boost in sales for the Realtors.


My $0.02L

1). What relationship does Big Spaceship have with the User Community in Second Life?

2). How many New Residents will be asked to participate in this design phase?

3). IF you say you have already interviewed New Residents, please specify how many were surveyed, at the time they were surveyed, what was the total number of New Residents at the time of the Survey compared to the amount of New Residents surveyed?

4). If you aren't surveying New Residents, are you at least contacting those in-world that have been doing New Resident events to help New Residents acclimate to Second Life? If Not, are planning on contacting these people, since it would seem to me, they might have a pretty good idea on what New Residents want.


Thank you for you time, I would appreciate detailed answers to these questions asked.

This is an awesome idea, make it like equiping items in an MMORPG. Just drag the item to a slot on a sort of "paperdoll" version of your avatar. It works for WoW and all the other MMORPGs out there. Implementing it in SL would be nice as well.

It seems you're sure that we recommend Second Life to our friends.
You are a happy girl, you haven't to pay for Second Life, but what whould you do, IF the company who hosts your prefered "RL escape" raises the prices that bad like Linden Lab? Would you recommend this place?

And please keep also in mind, that round about 20-30.000 from the online users are nothing more then bots.

Here are some suggestions for you (with this i mean whole Linden Lab)

- Reduce the bot-usage, as example, kill the traffic counting High traffic don't mean it's a
popular place

- Don't kick asses with raising prices for 66% (Openspace SIMs)

- Work on a better and more stable Grid with a much better SIM-crossing

- Take care about your customers (SIM-Owners), because THEY pay you.

- More safeness about user created content

- a REAL backup function for owned content (I don't mean textures / photos)

If Linden Lab will change things, change the major problems first before you hire a third party for a website "makeover". Reinvest your money to the grid and your residents and not for not really necessary things.

Thats my 50 cent.

I'm pretty reasonable - I haven't been screaming that I pay the same tier for mainland as I would with Open Sim - because I read the wiki and decided I didn't want to deal with the limited use terms of OS.

But - reading Big Spaceships web site is an eye opener - especially the help wanted section. You gotta be kidding me!

The interface is not the problem.

Great post Bob ..........interested to see LL's answers to those questions too

Better would be to have a single view with "Newbie Mode" added, so there is less to write and support. Downloading a 100M file just to have to replace it with another 100M file and have some incompatibility with the cache creep in and blow the whole thing up is a nonstarter. But having a unified viewer that wakes up in NewbMode and has to be switched to NormMode in Preferences would be easy to do.

But I echo Brocolli's sentiment that keeping your commited and current paying customers as well as getting new subscribers is preferable. I'll add to it that the current customers will be telling the newcomers about LL business practices to date. So I hope LL isn't counting on simply replacing its customers as if they were cogs in a machine. Those who are willing to spend tons of money to play SpaceCowboy are already doing so. Toss those eager beavers aside, and you'll find the remainder aren't as willing to spend real cash for the experience, no matter how simple you make it.

When you've got too many unsatisfied residents, better work on bringing new ones instead of listening to them...

While the ux mailing list seems to concentrate on user interface, everyone are welcome to come here and talk about resident improvement experiences.

Also, I think the weekly Resident Experience meeting hour could use a bit more publicity:
it is held at every Thursday, 15:00 SLT.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Beaumont/148/155/46/

"Big Spaceship is an interactive design agency with expertise in user experience strategy, interface design, and Web development. Past and current clients include Adobe, Sony, HBO, Nike, Coca-Cola and Disney."


Great that you hire a company which the big ones can afford....guess you are paying their fees with the 10 Mio USD you get from us from the OS tier fee increase!!

It's a great idea to streamline the online and in-world interface. As a UI designer, I welcome the changes, and it looks like you chose a great design team to implement these changes.

Contrary to some viewpoints, this is not "dumbing down" the interface. Simplifying interface elements makes it less frustrating for new players, and simplifies the everyday tasks that veteran residents will appreciate. If a task that used to take 6 clicks now takes 3 clicks, how is that a bad thing?

And the Open Space issue, and SL overall stability... those are separate issues. It *is* possible to do more than one thing at a time

GM

I tried importing the office hour calendar into a sidebar gadget. didn't work out well. I think the office hours would be served well by being an event with it's own category for Linden Office Hours or Linden Public Meetings so the in world system could be used for reminders. (assuming that even works). The reason few people attend office hours is because there is no decent sceduling system inside SL. Yet another opportunity for an external service tie in to SL to offload grid cycles and improve the overall performance. And one of significant value to anyone thinking SL should be used for workspace applications.

I see all the benefits that could come from this, however, the timing of this announcement is absolutely seen as a smoke screen atm!

There is a huge issue on the table right now, and as good as this announcement could be in the long run, if the current issue isnt dealt with now, the long run wont matter as much as it could. Just my opinion!

Hey Benjamin, remember when I was asking all those annoying questions at the UI Office Hours, where you and Grant where a bit shocked someone would even question you, and I said, "So, when is Linden Lab going to hire and outside firm to deal with the New Resident issue?" and you asked, "Why would we need to?" and I answered, "Because Linden Lab lacks the necessary tools, people, and competence to approach a problem this size".

Well, guess I gotta say it now, "I told you".