There was a very interesting Community Tools User Group Meeting tonight, interesting because Amanda opened up the floor to brainstorming rather than going over old ground, which was nice. Quite a few suggestions were raised and there was discussion whether “Noob” is a derogatory term, I ony see it as derogatory when it’s used in a derogatory manner, which is usually when an experienced user is called a Noob by someone else, this happens in World Of Warcraft a lot!
However when it comes to retaining new users and helping them, we really need to start with looking at the new user experience and that means delving into basic mode in viewer 2, to be a noob, you have to become a noob …. or something like that! The issue with basic mode in viewer 2 is that it’s very basic, it also has some features that I think older residents would benefit from. However when it comes to ideas about new user orientation, people really need to understand how basic, basic mode is, there’s no inventory, no file menu, no Linden dollars!
Let’s take a look at the view you get in basic mode:
No sidebar, no file menu, no Linden Dollars, however as you won’t be able to see from that image, there are some buttons to play with, People is friends, as we’re all used to and profile is the web profile, we’re all used to….well those of us who play the viewer 2 shuffle, but there are three other buttons, Destinations, My Avatar and How To:
Destinations is certainly one I think the main viewer could benefit from, although it would also be a tad controversial as those destinations would certainly benefit from foot traffic and this is a tricky situation from Linden Lab’s perspective, pressing destinations brings up fourteen categories, which I’m not going to list, but I will show you them in the form of imagery! Yay for me being artistically challenged:
Now if you click a category, you find places that meet that theme, I chose Adventure/Fantasy … you didn’t really think I’d click Romance did you?
Now there are more places than this, you scroll along and I do think this would be handy for the main viewer in advanced mode, but, yes there is the issue of which destinations are in the list, it really can be a bonus for those listed. However in terms of helping new residents find things to look at, then yes, this is intuitive, easy to look at, works nicely and helpful.
My avatar helps you change your avatar to one of the selected default avatars, here’s a sample:
Again, this is straight forward and even in advanced mode this could be handy, especially if you could drag and drop custom made avatar settings onto this menu bar, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
How To deals with some very basic steps, how to find destinations, change your avatar, chat, fly etc. However this one may be a bit too basic:
However again, it is easy to find, it could do with more information. Now, the basic mode does have some strong points, it also has some glaring weak points, no inventory being one. When we were discussing how to retain new users, people were suggesting showing them how to unpack boxes, shop, wear clothes, with no inventory, these are non starters. Whilst we’re trying to think of ways of retaining new residents, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of new residents and I’d urge anyone who has an interest in retaining new residents and ideas on how to help them, to load up viewer 2 in basic mode and walk in their shoes, because some great ideas will be lost if people don’t understand what new users see.
Personally I think Linden Lab should develop a quest with rewards system for new users, for example tell them how to search and then send them on a quest to find Linden Village and take the balloon tour, have some helpers whom they should send an IM to and reward them with … well that’s the tricky part, but some sort of achievement for searching, teleporting and exploring would be helpful.
Recently I’ve downloaded Eve-Online, besides being totally blown away by the new character creation, I was also interested in the new user tutorial, it simply gives you some quests and guides you through them, telling you how to lock target ships, set destinations and gives you some rewards for carrying out these tasks. Now Eve-Online is a tad different from Second Life, although it’s pretty open ended, but the basic concept of a guide through some early missions would be useful in some form in Second Life in my opinion.
The new character creation in Eve-Online really is impressive, you can customise your eyes, brows, lashes, skin tones, scars to impressive levels, I’m not sure why as you spend most of your time flying in space or looking at a spaceship, your character doesn’t get out of the ship, maybe they have plans in the future, but it is bloody impressive how detailed you can get.
However, let’s get back to Second Life and new users, I’ve listed a couple of suggestions above, how about you? Do you have any ideas about what would benefit new residents and what sort of help would you have appreciated when you were new?
The quest idea is a most excellent suggestion – and the approach has a proven track record in other games / environments. It has even been used within SL in various communities (in the D/s community we actually had a couple of quests that were both fun and designed to instil a greater understand of D/s among those interested in getting involved.
Both worked very well.
They need something fun to do that also educates them. You’re right, it has a proven track record.
D/s scares me, so I’m sure it would scare some new residents too, but the concept is the same and that’s the important part, education, fun and engagement.
Excellent advice! I am adding this to a growing list for new folks to access. <33
Thank you Argus 🙂