I thought I'd start a thread revolving around the distinct design challenges and opportunites posed in SL with regards to building and other general design issues. I'm posting this in the artiist/designer forum too, since I'm not really sure where it belongs. The goal is to provide helpful guidelines to spur better design and foster more enjoyable, useful user experience.
I'm starting from the idea that although VR oftentimes is viewed and used as a simulation of RL (and this is how most people seem to build, quite nicely I might add) it might be more aptly described as an Analogy to RL. Some things are similar and other things are quite different. Our AVs live in a Grand Analogy.
This might seem pretty obvious (duh! hehe), but since our capabilities and needs are somewhat different in SL as opposed to RL then maybe we should design for that instead of trying to go for as much of an exact simulation as possible.
There's a saying that "Form follows Function".
Some questions are these:
What exactly are the Functions/Requirements of this World? What are its Residents Needs?
What aspects are being underserved?
What conventions are being carried over from RL that aren't very applicable in RL?
Some examples:
Doors. I'm Flying Impaired and people build tiny doors up high with tiny platforms or balconies for access. Shouldn't these be either at ground level for walking access and/or "landing pads" created on the roof with a direct drop in funnel thru the ceiling?
Exploring is fun but.... Place local area info Kiosks with Notecards so people can identify smaller places of interest to them that aren't listed on the Events or Places categories. This might build ,more local neighborhood cohesion and community.
I love to look a pretty pictures! lol but sometimes i stand in front of them for a long time, then when it loads it's quite small. Perhaps having "marks" on the floor or in space would be helpful to achieve an optimal viewing effect. idk..
Anyways, I'llbe adding more suggestions and hopefully solutions as time goes on and I hope you do too! thanks.
By the way- please don't pose questions that only the Lindens can fix. That's probably better discussed in the Features suggestions forum. This is about what we can do as AV partcipants in the Building and Design process.