I
would like to thank everyone who sent me messages on how to improve
Second Life. For now, I will leave aside longer term goals around
creativity, new windows into Second Life, and other initiatives.
Instead, I want to share three important areas that we are focusing on
in the short-term, based on your suggestions:
- Service: We
have added significant resources to better address customer service
times. Many of you will have noticed that our response times have
improved both for individual cases and larger community issues. In
addition, we are actively working to reduce
commerce friction. We will continue to work hard to work out the kinks
and improve these services even further.
- Lag: We
have already implemented some server-side performance enhancements to
improve lag and there will be far greater focus on that area in the
months to come.
- Usability: This is the topic of today’s post.
Many
of you have noted that Second Life is difficult to use, both for
yourself and when inviting friends inworld. This usability issue is more
complex than the user interface as it not only includes finding people
and places, but it is also is dependent on some of the items above. We
want to make an experience that helps you overcome some of the big
usability hurdles that you’ve shared with me.
Today,
we’re launching a new version of Second Life Viewer Beta which
introduces two modes that are available to everyone who downloads
it--Basic and Advanced.
Basic
mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to
Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such
as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24
pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you
connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain
functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability
to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.
Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.
There
are a couple of things that I want to share right off the bat. First,
both Basic and Advanced modes are built on the same code base and are
included in the standard download of the SL Viewer Beta. You can think
of it like two skins on the same piece of software. New customers will
default to Basic, and if you already have the SL Viewer loaded onto your
machine, the new version will default to the Advanced mode.
Our goal is to get new users comfortable in SL using
Basic mode and then have the option to toggle to the Advanced mode when they are ready to
conduct more advanced activities such as using voice, purchasing virtual
goods, and building. And, it’s easy to switch back and
forth. Simply toggle to the alternate mode in the Login Screen, and then
log back in.
Lastly,
we know that the Basic mode is very lean, and we’re only at the
beginning of developing the minimum feature set--keeping it simple and
working on the basics of usability first. We anticipate adding
additional capabilities to Basic mode, so your feedback is important
before we make this version of the SL Viewer the default download for
new users.
This is a first small step towards making the world that you have created more accessible and enjoyable to use for everyone.
So, download the SL Viewer Beta and try it out.
Thanks,
Rodvik
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