Is SL too hard for newbies?

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It's important to understand this is from the perspective of an established user who is intimately familiar with how SL operates.

Yes, but it's the most valid persepective. I cannot see how you could teach a newcomer from any other position. They don't know what they need to know, the teacher knows and then applies the art of teaching, which is to imagine what gulf exists between their knowledge and that of someone who does not know, and tries to work out methods of passing knowledge across the gap.

Approaching the problem from the perspective of somebody who knows nothing of SL results in the familiar story we see very often, where somebody wants SL to be re-written so it's Unreal Tournament or the Sims or Minecraft or whatever.

[cunomar]

"Instructions 1 to 10"

1. make a folder = hours of googling how to make a folder until you have become so bored of the whole idea you never do read part 2 lol .

[Jennifer Boyle]

21 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

1) LL releases a new mesh avatar with a totally new and improved system to it.

2) Clothing developers now have a fresh new body guaranteed to be popular that they can make clothes for.

3) Body developers can make a shinier version of the New LL Body and offer it as an upgrade, because we know the LL one isn't going to be perfect, and some users just prefer brandname goods.

3.5) People can still wear their old bodies too if they want. It's not like those clothes disappear!

4) Everyone wins!

If anything at all, letting the few existing brands hold SL hostage because "otherwise their business will be ruined" seems like a thoroughly terrible idea. There are always improvements to be made, and businesses will adapt.

Sounds like a winner for all to me.

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 11/5/2021 at 10:24 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

Maybe, and maybe not. To simplify how avatar appearance works, a new system of body sliders and clothing layers/appliers/attachments/whatever would most likely be needed. Ensuring backwards compatibility and avoiding breaking existing content, while a terrific idea, is what's gotten us into the current muddled mess.

Couldn't there be a choice somewhere, that would default to the new system, to allow the user to choose the old or the new?

[cunomar]

Been killing time for a week trying to find whatever it was that made me stay in SL , so using the destination guide wandering "whats hot now" and newbie friendly"

And Social Island is about the only sim i know in sl where something is happening , albeit utter gibberish in local chat while muppets test various dance huds and the like .

My laptop stays muted so that obviously makes my choice bias, but I wonder if social island alone is enough to make newbies stay ?

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by cunomar

[Lindal Kidd]

2 hours ago, cunomar said:

I wonder if social island alone is enough to make newbies stay ?

Obviously it is, for some newbies. A lot of the partygoers at Social Island 10 have been in SL (and pretty much only at that one location) for years.

[Katherine Heartsong]

Having to explain the differences between Add and Wear over and over and over again to every single new person in SL who arrives is one sign of a terrible user experience.

The second one that I am always having to explain is rezzing an item. Sweet hell, that's another horrible UX.

Is this square box in my inventory one I Add and have appear as a little shopping bag or box in my hands, or am I going to be surrounded by a prim that should have been dragged out onto the ground?

Does that thing on the ground need to be touched or opened? Is it going to disappear by itself or do I need to take or delete it?

Will the shopping bag automatically open a menu to unpack, or do I have to touch it to make that happen? Will it disappear itself after putting the final thing in my inventory, or do I have to drop, delete, or unattach it?

That is so hard to teach a new user. It took me three minutes to write that, and every new user needs to be taught that. And that assumes they don't make a mistake doing it ... ever had someone wonder where the object went when they dragged it to the ground and it disappeared, only to reappear in their Lost and Found after they log out and back in?

Ugh.

30 years as a UX designer. Trust me, SL's user experience is, for the most part, a steaming mess overall.

[Katherine Heartsong]

On 11/4/2021 at 6:42 PM, Solar Legion said:

1. snipped
2. snipped
3. There is no need to remove the "Wear" option - explain as part of the starter material what the difference is.

Yes they do.

It's confusing.

I've done UX for 30 years and the point of great UX design is to remove or reduce pain points and points of confusion, and be 100% focused on the user. Wear and Add are terms that are too similar in their definition and how people perceive them, and also function somewhat similarly in world. More importantly, I can repeatedly demonstrate that it causes immense confusion to someone new in the game. It needs to be fixed.

On 11/5/2021 at 5:40 AM, Cinos Field said:

Certainly, holding back progress to please businesses is always a bad idea. A few ways this could be done...

1) LL releases a new mesh avatar that can wear clothes for say, Maitreya.

That's brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

Perhaps add some limitations compared to the Lara body, so Maitreya doesn't lose too many sales. Or better yet, make a selection of new female starter bodies that would allow a person to select one akin to Lara, one like Belleza Freya, one like Kupra, etc that would fit those clothes.

[Solar Legion]

No, they don't. Wear replaces, Add ... Adds. Explain the difference at the very least, change the former to be clear that it replaces existing items at the most.

That's it. That's all it "needs".

Part of the "problem" exists due to many creators not bothering to have an item attach to a point that makes actual sense, opting to have their items attach to the Right Hand instead. That needs to stop as well.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Yes they do.

It's confusing.

I've done UX for 30 years and the point of great UX design is to remove or reduce pain points and points of confusion, and be 100% focused on the user. Wear and Add are terms that are too similar in their definition and how people perceive them, and also function somewhat similarly in world. More importantly, I can repeatedly demonstrate that it causes immense confusion to someone new in the game. It needs to be fixed.

That's brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

Perhaps add some limitations compared to the Lara body, so Maitreya doesn't lose too many sales. Or better yet, make a selection of new female starter bodies that would allow a person to select one akin to Lara, one like Belleza Freya, one like Kupra, etc that would fit those clothes.

I haven't used Wear in years unless it's by accident.  If they want both, isolate one as the did with Teleport Home on Firestorm under World.  They could also add next to Wear, replaces.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[cunomar]

I been here almost 4 and a half years and your telling me now the "wear" option actually serves a purpose ?

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Solar Legion said:

Part of the "problem" exists due to many creators not bothering to have an item attach to a point that makes actual sense, opting to have their items attach to the Right Hand instead. That needs to stop as well.

This! So much this! To a point I am tempted to start doing reviews of every item that automatically goes to the right hand and dock it 2 stars even if I would normally give it a 5. Maybe some of these creators will start getting a clue if enough others do it also.

[Theresa Tennyson]

19 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

This! So much this! To a point I am tempted to start doing reviews of every item that automatically goes to the right hand and dock it 2 stars even if I would normally give it a 5. Maybe some of these creators will start getting a clue if enough others do it also.

My favorite are the clothing makers whose clothing meant for avatars wearing the Maitreya Petite add-on are set to the default attachment point for (wait for it) the Maitreya Petite add-on.

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

This all ultimately comes down to The Lab's very much non-existent content uploading /merchant standards. 

I mentioned in another thread (about facebooks "meta" flop-in-the-making) that one of the things other online worlds have seemingly learned from SL is to gatekeep the ability to upload content much more closely. usually its in the form of a "creator program" or similar. I think that's even how LL were handling Sansar. 

Conversations like this is why.

And while I love SL for its creativity, if you want to SELL your creations, LL should have clear guidelines and enforce them to avoid this kind of stuff occurring.

The guidelines could cover a lot of the issues raised in this thread. Ensuring that certain things in the process (delivery and unpacking, sizes, attachment points, etc) are standardised for a better and simpler end-user experience. 

But its LL, so that's never going to happen of course

Edited November 13, 2021 by AnnabelleApocalypse

[Arielle Popstar]

9 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

My favorite are the clothing makers whose clothing meant for avatars wearing the Maitreya Petite add-on are set to the default attachment point for (wait for it) the Maitreya Petite add-on.

It wouldn't be so bad if there at least was a back button or working Ctrl Z in the viewers to revert the change(s) back to what it was instead of having to research for the attachment)s) that were knocked off and put them back on.

[Katherine Heartsong]

6 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

No, they don't. Wear replaces, Add ... Adds. Explain the difference at the very least, change the former to be clear that it replaces existing items at the most.

I'm super glad you know that. 90% of new users don't and there is no one to explain it to them. The UI for the LL and FS viewers don't. That's the usability issue. If it's not obvious to the user, and the default thinking is to "wear" something (which it is, if English is your first language), when stuff disappears ... and it does .. who explains that to the new user?

As a designer if I can stop a user from making an error, I should. These two very similar choices don't.

Again, this goes back to on-boarding new users. This sure isn't explained. The new user experience in SL is a mess of frustrations. I remember wanting to throw my computer across the room ... and making good UXs is my job, so I can sure recognize poor ones.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Katherine Heartsong

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

No, they don't. Wear replaces, Add ... Adds.

Maybe the word "Wear" should be replaced with "Replace" then?

Apart from that, I'm definitely with Solar in this. Both options are useful and should be retained.

Edited November 14, 2021 by ChinRey

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'm super glad you know that. 90% of new users don't and there is no one to explain it to them

This is 100% correct. The only way anyone figures this out is trial and error.

There is certainly an argument to be made for those menu entries to be a bit smarter. Maybe even just switching them to 'add' and 'replace XXXXXXX' showing the name of the item to be replaced .. or just ditch the second item entirely as now everything is rigged mesh, the named attachment point often has no relevance.

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

To be honest, they need to have a better interactive experience as a tutorial. I know people may cringe, but turn it into a small RPG game, like an experience similar to Runescape or The Elder Scrolls. I think if it were that interactive, especially when it comes to avatar customization. I feel like noobs would have a better understanding, and not be thrown into the virtual world. Not knowing what the heck they are doing. 

[Teagan Tobias]

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I haven't used Wear in years unless it's by accident.  If they want both, isolate one as the did with Teleport Home on Firestorm under World.  They could also add next to Wear, replaces.

I use Wear every day, its something I count on to work for me.

[Solar Legion]

28 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This is 100% correct. The only way anyone figures this out is trial and error.

There is certainly an argument to be made for those menu entries to be a bit smarter. Maybe even just switching them to 'add' and 'replace XXXXXXX' showing the name of the item to be replaced .. or just ditch the second item entirely as now everything is rigged mesh, the named attachment point often has no relevance.

Wear (and Replace) removes all items on a particular attachment point or system layer (which are still used here and there).

Until someone lights a fire under the creators out there that insist on not putting their items on an attachment point that actually makes sense (and even after that occurs), there's not much reason to do any more than alter Wear to make it clear what you are actually doing.

[Isobeast]

When I first fell into SL, it was probably ten years ago, I barely earned ten lindens an hour and it was more like slavery, I had to stand in one place and perform some stupid dance, while I had to watch the advertisements on the walls and it was impossible to get out, as some kind of reset mechanism was triggered. Probably for this they began to prohibit the so-called camping.

But it was still very interesting to study the possibilities of this world, one might say, in the best years!

I do not know how things are with this now, but I really sympathize with novice players.

The greatest success here is likely to be achieved mainly by people with professional skills who perceive SL as a commercial platform.
Although some skills can be acquired from scratch here in SL, it takes a lot of strength and perseverance.

 

So yes, it’s difficult for beginners, probably, if you don’t invest real money.

[Rowan Amore]

Considering SL is free to download AND play, the cost is what each individual feels it is worth.  Don't most other games cost around $60 just to download?  To me, an investment of roughly the same amount or less can get you a pretty decent mesh avatar and some clothes.  Anything else is purely at your discretion.  There is no monthly fee unless you go premium which isn't necessary to log in each and every day, all day if you choose.  

I think the most difficult part is finding people to engage with if that's your objective.  There are no videos/ tutorials telling you how to do that.  Plenty on how to create an avatar, though.

[Silent Mistwalker]

On 10/30/2021 at 1:22 PM, animats said:

Roblox has just developed new technology to make clothing Just Work.

In the new Roblox system, the clothing is automatically adapted to fit the avatar. This is very new, and still in test.

 

Next generation of Roblox clothing on new-style avatars. It's not just blocks any more.

Their in-house designers like a somewhat anime style. That's not built into the system. Creators can create and sell third-party clothing.

(Roblox has an average user age of 13, remember. Clothing has to have more coverage over there.)

So, it can be done, and has been done.

 

 

Not so hard to do when all the avatars are the same size and shape.  Same height, build and they didn't get the proportion between shoulders and hips right. Women's hips are NOT wider than their shoulders! (Unless they have had children.)

[Nick0678]

26 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Women's hips are NOT wider than their shoulders! (Unless they have had children.)

Nods.