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Thanks to Botgirl, we’ve got a video of what you might call a typical Second Life new user experience (as it seems to stand currently) – although a genuine new user might not actually do as well. It’s certainly thought-provoking. Found this interesting? Give it a bump!
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The art of creating a good user experience for newcomers is being able to at least imagine the experience of being a new user. Seem obvious, right?
Empathy? In dreadfully short supply in some quarters, I’d say.
Brilliant video. I’m particularly taken by how the club board with the LMs is completely confusing to a newcomer. The lag of walking was also painful.
Had I not been there for my first-year students, in the flesh and as an avatar (they spawned at NMC Island) it would have been a disaster.
I personally had to mentor them for the first hour, this group of so-called “digital natives.” I recall saying “that’s a landmark,” and “that’s a note card,” and “do not remove all your clothing” many, many times.
I’ve no doubt that they’d have never logged in again had it not be required for a graded course.
Remember this?
I was curious so made up a throwaway alt from scratch to see what the initiation was like. Apart from messing up my shiny new mail account (that was my fault, but someway of stepping back to correct it would have been nice) it was all pretty straight forward. I even downloaded 2.poo to make it a real attempt haha. Signed in and ended up at something 98. Nice easy graphics, big arrows to follow, learn chat, alt-view, how to sit (hmm right click or left that confused me, then again it always does even when i build the thingy) and learnt to fly. Rather like the dome. And hello talky parrot yes i remember you.
So far so good.
Now lets go to places of interest, as i dont want to meet people. Now that was probably not typical first timer activity but wth. Now my troubles began. TPed to some place called pteredon and was confronted with a garish rocky place where i was promptly stuck, ankle deep in water. So i cheated and called in backup (ie me) and promptly sank him into 20 m of water. A bit of exploring by air and we ended up in a pit – fell through the floor. So i TPed “home”, dont remember being told how to do that.
Ended up in a welcome area (korea something) in the middle of the road with other noobs and contacted with an offer of friendship and TP invite to a store. Nothing overwhelming and rather good buz practice. Had a play with inv, and not to bad a default selection.
So i cant really say how it was except it was not too bad. Then i looked at it from some experience which obviously effected my pov. OK so i know little about the viewer and came in with tainted viewpoints based on an earlier incarnation but i have to say that its really not that bad. if you drop all your old habits. Really not that bad – telling statement right there.
Overall i dont think that those of us who have been inworld for some time CAN really advise how to make it a better first time experience. This is not the era of wednesday downtime nor the woo hoo 25 k online at the same time. Its not the same SL we joined. Take that as you will.
I think that what bugs me about this video is that this essentially represents the pinnacle of Linden Lab’s marketing, technology and accumulated knowledge and experience in introducing new users to Second Life.
All of that… results in this.
Wow.
Well, Tateru, as one student said to me “not everyone can afford, or wants, an Alienware desktop system and Linden Lab assumes that.”
And that’s just the LAG and subpar graphics. But I’m still amazed that they got the Grid to work at all. Perhaps they might have dedicated a little more time to what to do when a noob logs on.