Second Life: Testing a new home page this week

Make it a floating layer, so that when flash is blocked you'd see through it to an underlying button to load a plain non-HTML version... the same one you'd use when flash wasn't available.

Absolutely. The only flash part would really be INSIDE the floating layer. However this is just a non-functional sketch model. But from my designers point of view, shows what SL should be doing to create professional websites that can keep EVERYONE happy.

[edit] The point is that one can also drag these boxes about, allowing for a desirable layout. None of the modules have set positions except for the default layout, which can be easily changed.

i'm not crazy about flash either but it here to stay.. cant see youtube running on ajax

one of the missing option (dance, flirt, learn shop..) is "sex".. seriously

The only thing I would suggest is to make the "add module" stuff less prominent, and include a few standard modules, so it doesn't look so incomplete.

Quite honestly, I think its about time LL developed their own player. Using youtube is still a noobie way (still love ya torley!) of doing things. It's not hard to develop such a player at all.

I agree on that point. I made it as simple as possible for a sketch model to avoid overcomplicating the point. Obviously the 'final' design would be different (i've never seen anything end up looking exactly like the sketch model, lol). The reason i used grey so prominently was for a specific reason also. To represent how SL started out (and how your webpage starts out). Five years ago it was a bit grey and dull and people came along and filled it with colour. Giving the user the ability to add colour to their own webpage from the default grey (which looks professional and corporate) is representative of this.

It's about flippin' time you made a new home page... the old one has been much the same for two years now. And it didn't seem all that fabulous even when it was new. I am especially tired of the sullen redhaired girl with the Grateful Dead T shirt, even though I am a redhaired girl myself.

I am not keen on the basic concept of a media-heavy flash extravanganza on the home page... it could turn into one of those turn of-the-century "barrier pages" which stand between the user and the real home page. (Indeed, those pages usually had--- or should I say "those pages usually have" since many still exist in the wild--- a link marked something like "Click here to enter the site." That always raised the question in my mind: "Hey, WTF!?! How come just typing in the domain name wasn't enough to gain entrance to the site?"

Some modern pages actually make the splash page interactive, links appear and vanish from the splash image. It's a bit abstract and not very corporate. A good and bad indication of this is

http://www.checklandkindleysides.com/

Good? Because its a fabulous page.

Bad? Because its all flash and some people just don't want it. But Graphic/Web Designers will try to have their cake and eat it. Particularly on their own websites.

Okay Argent. Here it is again but with some edited parts.

http://flickr.com/photos/28 058818@N08/3118844757/sizes/l/

"In addition to the homepage, we’ve been working to improve the registration experience for the new user."

If this isn't fixed all your efforts would have gone to waste.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-887

A flash home page?

Mystery Meat Navigation?

No Plain and simple language for new users?

Impossible Interface for Accessibility?

Inefficient graphic based content?

It is me or has this already all been covered over and over again by countless blogs and articles from the industry leaders (and mockers) in web design - For example on

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com
or perhaps
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
or possibly
http://www.alistapart.com
or even from 2003:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031110.html

Please LL - get with the times here...

I like the way the new homepage looks change it now hehe

hmm,
okies never posted on the forum before so here's me jumping in with my two feet but i thought to correct a couple of outdated points regarding the use of the flash and accessibility.

i am a professional web designer myself, working as a user experience specialist within a large company that is fully committed to making our web delivery fully accessible to the millions that hit our site every week and i have special responsibility for r&d - especially regarding the use of client software (not sl client but web ap client and RIA - rich internet applications).

Those sitting on the - must be fully CSS and html web front - I would humbly suggest to update their learning and move it forward a few years.

Web client technologies themselves are not bad - its how they are used (and were widely used some time ago) is where the issue comes in.

Flash is - and has for some time been fully accessible - IF the developers use the accessibility features built into the development platform. Most simply its often case of using the Make Object Accessible and Make Child Objects Accessible options.
Then the development team need to have an accessibility plan to direct new users using screen reader software through the experience relevant to them.

In fact i would hesitate to question if the content is meant to rich and dynamic why flex instead of flash is being used - but that a server side delivery mechanism rather than the client viewer - however that is something the Sl dev team would need to answer - but it certainly would alleviate any concerns regarding server issues.

No RIA client software delivering content to a web page works cross browser - including the magic AJAX if you have JavaScript turned off - but thats something which allows me to choose if i wish to see such content for security purposes.

However I haven't reviewed completely the site itself - nor would comment from a design point of view - as the blog said - this is an iteration of the final design and all things change as you go through the production cycle.

I wonder however if it is being turned on in the live environment site because they wish to test certain element of the site for end user MIA.

Lets get to the point here - what are lindens trying to do?

Create an experience which gives a taste of things to come to encourage conversion from casual visitor to actual SL user?

This of course is not something that could be done using flat HTML.

You wouldn't tell a youtube user to turn of flash would you?

The point being a sl user has to download and install a client to use so thinking that this type of person would be one most likely to also run the most popular plug-in available that also enable the widest choice of enriched experiences.

Now silverlight is available - and becoming increasingly supported - and the wpf/expression tool kit has a surprising amount of support to create a fully W3C compliant
CSS optimized web page - including flash/ silverlight. But perhaps the technology is not what appealed to the project management team making technical choices here.

So looking at the other concerns- if we address the accessibility issue and the end user experience the lindens are designing for - we are in fact moving toward the final design that has been delivered from what i can see.

yes replacing a flash object with flat html is a very outdated way of providing accessible content - linden i would check if you are a getting value for money from your flash dev team there as supporting two offering in the long term is a pain and a draw on resources.

One large flash object embedded in a page is also an ungainly way of delivering RIA content - look at such web sites as http://www.hardrock.com/ which deliver a fantastic experience that communicates a variety of messages without the one big file hit and actually chooses a variety of client delivery mechanisms within one page as to cover wthe widest number of users.

i suppose after all of this waffle, my key points come down to these -

1. Flash/flex is accessible - but need to be developed as such

2. I would hesitate to choose to put a large flash file on a homepage especially relying upon cookies to direct a user from within a browser.

3. But we do need to consider the stated experience required for this page - to fully display an enriched in world feel and wide choice to a 'new 'user not old hacks like us.

Are the lindens trying to appeal to old web user like us who are likely to have things turned of?

Or new users - keen to kow more about SL - people who have the new pc for Xmas with a big fat broadband pipe - ones who enjoy flash based movie sites and other advertising - personally i think thats why the lindens made the choices they did.

We just aint their target user group.

So umm what is up with the top right picture of that mans head?
His nose is rather pointy...
His mouth/lips look odd...
Is he wearing eye liner?

Fixed the link.

Here's what I'd change on that:

Add a link "Join!" in big letters in the top banner.

Move the two modules (Buy/sell L$, support) to buttons or pulldowns in the top bar, or put information (L$ sold today, for example, and the top status blog entries) in those modules.

Really, below the video bar, you want a news bar.

And really it should be someone at Linden Labs responding like that.

Come on guys, I'm the person least capable of making design decisions in the world and even I can see this thing has far too much pointless whitespace.

This is definitely a point I didn't make but wish I had. Of course streaming video delivery is very commonly done in flash right now but not in one mega block of flash that consumes the whole page like this seems to do. Instead small elements of flash are strung together with CSS.

I also like the hard rock website you pointed to. Using flash in that way would be a great step for SL. Using flash in the way bigspaceship.com does still sucks though.

There's very little point making a cluttered webpage. It just makes things confusing. The whole point of redesigning the webpage was to make it more simple and easier to view for new people, not current residents. So to this end I made *my* design as simple and as clean as possible to avoid confusing new people. It's not called 'whitespace' it's called 'negative space' and its a good design element. The design i have employed would be largely CSS with flash elements. Of course, people could construct their page with *no* flash elements in it. That's the beauty of the project.


- Argent. I was thinking that the 'begin your adventure' part might be the 'join' button. Either that or an animated link that switched between 'begin your adventure' and 'join', giving the best of both worlds, but I don't want too many animated elements on the homepage. Like I said, the point is to keep it as simple and direct as possible.

There's a difference between "not being cluttered" and "being empty". And I really don't think customization should be used as an alternative to design. The default modules should provide the information that a new user should know:

* What is second life.
* What's happening in SL now. News, status, number of users, money spent.
* Why they should join. That's the flash bar.
* How they should join. And it should be something that's obviously a primary link.

And they should look like a coordinated page, not like a bunch of boxes.

I'm a fan of starkness, but that's just empty. Text has, um...texture, too, you know. A page with all pictures says, "you're an idiot with the attention span of a thumbtack." That's not what I want web pages telling me. I want them to say, "you're busy, so here's the most pertinent information."

And I want them to be pretty. Text can be very pretty. Take a look at an Adobe book on typography.

And aluminum boxes? Yuk. Slim borders or no borders. Neater, more sophisticated, more compact, gets the stark thing done with room to spare for useful content.

Sorry, your page looks like you slapped some unrelated boxes together.

That's why its a sketch model. I'm not trying to come up with a final polished design here. LL are wasting your money on Big Spaceship for that. I am just trying to highlight certain important points using a visual medium.

As for 'aluminium' That's just a base default colour. You would be able to customize the colour of the page as well as pick what boxes you want, giving yourself the most related content/layout for your homepage (see previous posts).

I might just add, that i know there's alot of blank space on each side. I have a widesceen monitor, but not everyone else has. So its been designed to cater for various resolutions.


>>Welcome Page: (slightly wider with added stuff).

http://flickr.com/photos/28058818@N08/3119895797/sizes/l/

The welcome movie is prominent and yes, takes up most the screen. However it is a ONE TIME welcome movie. To register/download one will click the movie screen at the 'join us' part...
The movie's purpose is to deal with the question: WHAT IS SECOND LIFE

>>The Homepage

http://flickr.com/photos/28058818@N08/3120722462/in/photostream/

Once the movie has closed down, new modules will appear. These are by no means the modules I am suggesting be put on there, just an indication of what a module page would look like. I have included a larger bar with DOWNLOAD THE VIEWER - just in case someone forgets (and there is always one).
The 'more about SL' module is important in that it should include a section on Resident Stories, testimonies of what SL has done for residents. Education: how Second Life has come to be a tool in education for some people.
Religion: This could be changed, but I thought was insightful. Detailing how spirituality is growing within Second Life.

>>The Showcase Bar

http://flickr.com/photos/28058818@N08/3120722696/sizes/l/

The showcase bar will be flash. It will be a way of quickly exploring 'popular' sims. Listed into categories of 'Discover' 'Build' 'Learn (not visible in model)' 'Socialize' ect, clicking on one of these links will expand it (animated) and present the user with a number of hotspots based on that category. In this example, discover was the choice.


>>Showcase Bar: Summaries.

http://flickr.com/photos/28058818@N08/3119896407/sizes/l/

Here, something was selected ('lost gardens of apollo' is appropriate). This would cause the other thumbnails to be shunted along, revealing a summary of what Apollo is about and what could be found there. Clicking on the thumbnail would log the user in on the client and take them to that location (working largely like SLURL does for the web version of the grid-map.

Just more ideas, nothing final.

You can build a page that caters to various resolutions without leaving a lot of blank space around it.

Look at Google Mail for an example of a page with a fairly complex structure that still works from 640x480 up to 2048x1600 and beyond.

But it's not the blank space at the side that bothers me, it's the blank space at the bottom.

I assumed at first that you simply hadn't bothered to mock up any more detail. I didn't think that blank space and white background were design features.

Well this is just a sample. Obviously the page could be longer so you could scroll down, the picture you're seeing is just constructed in photoshop as an example of what I would make a moduled page look like. Much more could be added in the actual execution.

So you don't actually intend for there to be a bunch of white space around the module boxes?