SL new user retention, expectation and usability

[Quistess Alpha]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

First impressions. Failure of  expectations. Usability or accessibility show stoppers. 10 minutes and gone.

veering the detour back on track, SL does not have a "create your avatar now" intro sequence. Sure, you can learn to change things after you learn to move, but every other game with a character customization system does it the other way around: make your avatar first (even if it's just pick a skin from a list, move sliders around, pick one of 5 premade clothing sets) THEN learn to move.

I'm rather technically minded so I "figured it out" pretty quickly, but nobody cares enough about "woman with dog bag" to invest effort into moving her around. To me (and hopefully a broad class of people like me) one of the basic underlying joys of SL is being able to control someone I can identify with. The "intro sequence" really ought to put that more front and center.

I don't think it could be that hard to experience-sit new-born avatars onto a pose stand, open the edit shape floater for them, and give them some basic color changing clothes. Maybe NUX could have a skin-tone slider and some other common niceties.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Quistess Alpha said:

veering the detour back on track, SL does not have a "create your avatar now" intro sequence. Sure, you can learn to change things after you learn to move, but every other game with a character customization system does it the other way around: make your avatar first (even if it's just pick a skin from a list, move sliders around, pick one of 5 premade clothing sets) THEN learn to move.

I'm rather technically minded so I "figured it out" pretty quickly, but nobody cares enough about "woman with dog bag" to invest effort into moving her around. To me (and hopefully a broad class of people like me) one of the basic underlying joys of SL is being able to control someone I can identify with. The "intro sequence" really ought to put that more front and center.

I don't think it could be that hard to experience-sit new-born avatars onto a pose stand, open the edit shape floater for them, and give them some basic color changing clothes. Maybe NUX could have a skin-tone slider and some other common niceties.

I think this is dead on. It also matches the expectations of anyone who's ever played a MMORPG. (Which, I must confess, I haven't, but I've looked over the shoulder of someone who does.)

[animats]

22 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Do they press W to walk forward, type wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww in chat and freak out? Do they seen an avatar, fall face first into the uncanny valley, and are subconsciously biased from that moment on? Does the lack of smoothness and a hint of jank put them off? Do they have an immediate "how do I" question and then just give up?

Those are good questions.

Users today expect a very smooth onboarding experience. Experiment: go to Decentraland.org. How many clicks and keystrokes before you're in world? Two. You're in a mostly empty welcome area with lists of places to go, and a waterfall hole that leads to a bar. You're limited to part of the world, and can't buy anything, but you can try before you buy. Decentraland is not that good, but the onboarding is very simple.

Here's Second Life's first new user screen.

Papers, please!

This is the new user's first experience. It sets the tone of Second Life.

[animats]

8 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

SL does not have a "create your avatar now" intro sequence.

Good point.

5 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

"woman with dog bag"

Or worse, "70s disco guy carrying radio".

I've seen some very unhappy new users stuck with that outfit. London City and Firestorm Help Island should have billboards: "Do you look like this? There is help."

New users actually have some decent avatars in inventory, but nobody tells them that.

Edited August 15, 2022 by animats

[Quistess Alpha]

2 minutes ago, animats said:

Papers, please!

This is the new user's first experience. It sets the tone of Second Life.

Agreed, but to be fair, an SL-style create an account barrier isn't uncommon either. FF14 (as a perhaps-not-so random example) has similar jank before you get the actual game installed and running.

[Seicher Rae]

16 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

veering the detour back on track, SL does not have a "create your avatar now" intro sequence. Sure, you can learn to change things after you learn to move, but every other game with a character customization system does it the other way around: make your avatar first (even if it's just pick a skin from a list, move sliders around, pick one of 5 premade clothing sets) THEN learn to move.

I'm rather technically minded so I "figured it out" pretty quickly, but nobody cares enough about "woman with dog bag" to invest effort into moving her around. To me (and hopefully a broad class of people like me) one of the basic underlying joys of SL is being able to control someone I can identify with. The "intro sequence" really ought to put that more front and center.

I don't think it could be that hard to experience-sit new-born avatars onto a pose stand, open the edit shape floater for them, and give them some basic color changing clothes. Maybe NUX could have a skin-tone slider and some other common niceties.

Wow. Yes. It has been a long time since I created an alt, so I kind of have forgotten the process, let alone what changes have been made, but yes! In other games I have played, from The Sims to Skyrim, you create and customize your avatar FIRST, in an easy way... and I loved doing that. That's actually one reason I have alts, because I like to design avatars.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Seicher Rae

[Seicher Rae]

Also what about the LL viewer? I remember, those long time agos, that I didn't like how the viewer worked and felt and luckily within the first day I was told about Emerald, which felt so much better to me. The few times I've used the official viewer I've hated it, but I know that is because I'm so used to Emerald to Firestorm now. But I wonder... is the viewer itself a problem?

[Arielle Popstar]

22 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If someone is struggling and trying, we have them .. they are likely going to stay. Please. Take your "i want a pictorial inventory but have no idea how it can work with SL conceptually" to it's own thread and hammer out the details of exactly how it's going to work. 

Please Arielle, read the OP. This is not a repeat of the usual threads. Stop trying to make it one.

First impressions. Failure of  expectations. Usability or accessibility show stoppers. 10 minutes and gone.

`Newbies have to get invested into the platform quickly, whether financially, emotionally or mentally. That is going to vary with the individual. For me it was about how easily I could modify my avatar to something reasonable that I liked the look of, even if it was a pretty basic look. For you it was winning money, others it is going to be creative expression with inworld building tools. Whatever the pull, obviously needs to be advertised and a fairly fast intro in what may interest them.

[Ceka Cianci]

I just made a 41 minute video going through the startup area tonight..

I seen two ghosts and three  running in place for, they may still be actually.. then a couple of others in there that were doing fine..

I don't know, I think they really need to work on that start up area and get more modernized. Everything looks like it's from a decade ago in there.

then they have you coming to so many cross roads instead of one path.. you can go this way and socialize or this way and  do tutorials..

They have people heading to the beach before they teach them how to sit, zoom ,use cam controls..

I left the alt there because I don't know if i'm almost finished or if I am done. I just know that they had options to upgrade my avatar and pictures of these avatars that I wanted to try and then went into the shop and it's old stuff that would never give me what I wanted in the picture..

I recognized all that stuff in there is why I say that.. lol

 

I don't know.. I mean i can see them going through the start area and then something after causing them to quit , or just seeing the stuff in there and thinking, wow this is some really old stuff.

I might upload that video, but wow it's 41 minutes long.. lol It might be uploaded by next week..

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Ceka Cianci]

26 minutes ago, animats said:

Those are good questions.

Users today expect a very smooth onboarding experience. Experiment: go to Decentraland.org. How many clicks and keystrokes before you're in world? Two. You're in a mostly empty welcome area with lists of places to go, and a waterfall hole that leads to a bar. You're limited to part of the world, and can't buy anything, but you can try before you buy. Decentraland is not that good, but the onboarding is very simple.

Here's Second Life's first new user screen.

Papers, please!

This is the new user's first experience. It sets the tone of Second Life.

It took me forever to just get a user name.. I finally had to just make one close to mine. I didn't want any numbers in my name So that's why ot took me so long..

[Akane Nacht]

Hmm... I'd say...

Intro quest walking you through the basics, with cinematics of some sort, then a hud with some kind of buddy to guide you (a floaty white cloud that gradually turns into something cute as you learn new milestones? ok I totally lifted that from Black Desert). 

Intro quest completion rewards you with a free house on Linden land. It can be tiny, or time limited, but new players need rewards fast. Having a house to play with jumpstarts spending on furniture, which leads to need for bigger house.

[AzureWaves]

20 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

It took me forever to just get a user name.. I finally had to just make one close to mine. I didn't want any numbers in my name So that's why ot took me so long..

Ugh.. the user name. They should just bring back last names for ALL.

[Coffee Pancake]

30 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

For you it was winning money, others it is going to be creative expression with inworld building tools.

For me it was having that friend .. the activity was immaterial and confusing, I was having enough trouble clicking on things, sitting and moving my camera and chat. 

My fist successful SL session had almost nothing to do with SL or the technicalities of how it worked, it was social with plenty of the chatter telling me explicitly what to click and how.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, AzureWaves said:

Ugh.. the user name. They should just bring back last names for ALL.

That could easily be a 10 minute crash and burn.

Make an account, log in ... find out glrop3238384 wasn't the start you were hoping for now you've rezzed up in Chadwang69's shadow.

Sign up again or .. sod it.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

48 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

But I wonder... is the viewer itself a problem?

Open the viewer .. this looks old .. or worse .. wow, programmer art. not a good first impression

Do these micro negatives compound .. see enough yuk in the first 10 minutes and the decision to bail is made?

Could limiting exposure to anything even remotely janky for the first 10 minutes improve retention, ease the user into the mud with the rest of us?

[Ceka Cianci]

The middle one  in the hoodie is the one I was wanting to upgrade my avatar too, but none of that stuff is there..  Soon as you are finished with the tutorials and walk over the bridge you see this.. there is a guys version also..

What irritates me to death about this is, I've already been misled and I'm not even at mainland yet and still in the start zone.

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Rolig Loon]

41 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I just made a 41 minute video going through the startup area tonight..

I seen two ghosts and three  running in place for, they may still be actually.. then a couple of others in there that were doing fine..

I don't know, I think they really need to work on that start up area and get more modernized. Everything looks like it's from a decade ago in there.

then they have you coming to so many cross roads instead of one path.. you can go this way and socialize or this way and  do tutorials..

They have people heading to the beach before they teach them how to sit, zoom ,use cam controls..

I left the alt there because I don't know if i'm almost finished or if I am done. I just know that they had options to upgrade my avatar and pictures of these avatars that I wanted to try and then went into the shop and it's old stuff that would never give me what I wanted in the picture..

I recognized all that stuff in there is why I say that.. lol

Where the heck did you go?  That's not Welcome Island, where new accounts enter.  Welcome Island has a half dozen kiosk areas arranged on a single circular path. There's no beach, no crossroads, and there's no shop.  They created the new Welcome Island area over a year ago now, and there was quite a long discussion here in the forums about it.  It's all new stuff.

[Rolig Loon]

You can't go to Welcome Island unless you're a newbie, but you can go to Welcome Back Island, which is a cloned copy that you can visit any time.  Here's the kiosk area that introduces you to avatars:

The guidebook walks you through a handful of real basic things at each area.  You don't jump over things, or fly, or talk to parrots.

[Paul Hexem]

I just started playing Spider-Man Remastered.

120 FPS with ray tracing reflections and shadows, light shafts and bloom, subsurface scattering, and more.

SL gets what, 20 FPS? With just one of those features enabled in anywhere that matters.

Why would anyone but us crazy people stick around?

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Where the heck did you go?  That's not Welcome Island, where new accounts enter.  Welcome Island has a half dozen kiosk areas arranged on a single circular path. There's no beach, no crossroads, and there's no shop.  They created the new Welcome Island area over a year ago now, and there was quite a long discussion here in the forums about it.  It's all new stuff.

Adventure Island  and the beach is in central park

I just made this avatar tonight before I posted..It is where my new account entered.. I made it because of this thread..

I also made an alt over a year ago for the same reason and it's not the same  place as the last one came in at.. I've been watching new avatars pop in since I got here..

If it's new, it's not new looking as if they want to put there best foot forward new..

This is where I landed when I first logged in..

 

[Ceka Cianci]

34 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

You can't go to Welcome Island unless you're a newbie, but you can go to Welcome Back Island, which is a cloned copy that you can visit any time.  Here's the kiosk area that introduces you to avatars:

The guidebook walks you through a handful of real basic things at each area.  You don't jump over things, or fly, or talk to parrots.

There is no guide book where i was dropped in.. It's more like the 2006 version of orientation Island, but looks better than orientation island..

 brand new users are getting dropped in here.. Everyone is dated as starting today.. Some have been coming up telling me they are new here..

I just did an about land and the sim is owned by a user and not LL

So now I guess it's the luck of the draw on where you land when you first get in..  From my perspective, it's just like what they did with the  info hubs,  handing those over to the users.

So the owner of the sim is probably the one that built the place..

 

[Akane Nacht]

43 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Why would anyone but us crazy people stick around?

The things I miss when I am playing shiny new games are:

• Unlimited avatar customisation
• Unlimited home customisation 
• Ability to easily juggle multiple IMs

Haven't found any game that has all 3 to the level I'm used to in SL, at least not without downloading a ton of mods that may break at any time or do other undesirable things to my computer.

[animats]

1 hour ago, Akane Nacht said:

Intro quest completion rewards you with a free house on Linden land. It can be tiny, or time limited, but new players need rewards fast. Having a house to play with jumpstarts spending on furniture, which leads to need for bigger house.

Good idea. A basic tier, above "anonymous" but below "premium". Complete a quest, submit payment info, and get maybe L$200 or so as a starter gift. L$50 of that can go to your first home for a week.

L$50/week. Gone now, though. But there are many other SL motels in the L$50/week range.

It's not much, but it's home. A place to stay, to unpack and try clothes, to have friends over.

It's worth more than a dollar (L$250) to LL to get someone to the point where they have connected to the payment system. If they haven't spent money yet, they probably will soon. Especially once the rent box countdown starts. To prevent abuse, only one offer per credit card number.

LL doesn't even have to provide these motels. Many already exist. Just offer a directory or a portal area where low-cost mainland rentals are advertised. If there's demand, landlords will set up more of them.

A good way to start would be a "cheap places to stay" board at new user areas. With star ratings from people who've stayed there.

[Coffee Pancake]

But again, we're past the 10 minute mark .. looking for a home, we already have the user. They are ours to lose.

The vast overwhelming majority of SL signups don't get this far.

[Akane Nacht]

8 minutes ago, animats said:

Complete a quest, submit payment info, and get maybe L$200 or so as a starter gift. L$50 of that can go to your first home for a week.

That's a possibility. Personally, I take a looooong time before I give my credit card details to any game. I think we need to hook the hardcore free to play right away with something too. The money will come.

9 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The vast overwhelming majority of SL signups don't get this far.

Yeah need some progression and payoff right out of the gate. We don't level up so it's got to be some other carrot to dangle.