You can fly, but can you teleport? Usability assessment of new user orientation to Second Life
✍ Scribed by Lis Pardi; Rong Tang
- Book ID
- 102508148
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 128 KB
- Volume
- 48
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-7870
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Since the beginning, Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, has made great effort to get new account holders over the hurdles involved in getting acquainted with Second Life. There have been many attempts at creating a welcoming orientation environment that keeps new users' attention and teaches them the important points of interacting with a virtual world. In 2010, Linden Lab launched a new orientation space called Welcome Island, and a companion space called Discovery Island. This usability study was conducted to determine whether participants found the new spaces easy to understand and which parts they found to be most helpful. After a tworounds of usability testing where researchers observed participants' behavior on Welcome Island, several design strategies for a virtual world orientation program emerged. Recommendations include making the orientation short, visually effective, and mapped to the real world so that new users want to return.