SL new user retention, expectation and usability

[Marianne Little]

On 8/16/2022 at 12:05 PM, Alwin Alcott said:

that's what it became, thats no creating it's the opposite of what i meant with my remark,  bring back creativity to the users, not just a creating happy few that manage to operate quite complicated software. ( or buy /steal it at 3d sites)
The slogan "made by users" became "made by few users, the others are allowed to (buy) use it"
I think there should be a option, for the ones that want, to get a tool to create high(er) end objects inworld.

Oh, I agree with you that it should be more creating. But aren't our prims the same as the blocks in Minecraft? I looked at Minecraft and it was not for me.

I think LL should not ignore the people unhappy in RL. This is named Second Life. In RL, so many people live in small, cramped homes, their work is not rewarding, every day is the same.

For what one can spend on cigarettes or an expensive latte with caramel, they can buy a feeling of luxury in SL. A feeling that can keep people here. Another thing than a Netflix subscription.

Perhaps it is not so bad, to give those a house they can already get on orientation island.

Play with it there and decorate it with the freebies. Have posters with different houses, mansions and houseboats. "Rent land from another resident or buy from Linden Lab". "Make your dream home come true".

I could build with prims and don't come near an Onsu house. I could sit with Blender a year, still not that quality. I want something that looks like it what you see in a Flickr stream like "Love to decorate in SL".

I don't think I am alone about it, it many like me, who love to walk around and rez things and more them around.

[Katherine Heartsong]

On 8/17/2022 at 1:28 AM, Mowri Panache said:

My question has always been - why did Minecraft take off, when Second Life never did? 

Both offer a similar experience of un-scripted sandbox play, with Minecraft having terrible pixel graphics…but people seem to prefer creating things there instead of SL. It’s always baffled me. 

Could it be that Minecraft is perceived to be a game, and SL isn't? Even trying to explain the purpose of SL in a single, simple sentence is a tough one.

[Lindal Kidd]

7 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Could it be that Minecraft is perceived to be a game, and SL isn't? Even trying to explain the purpose of SL in a single, simple sentence is a tough one.

Just so. Minecraft is a building game. SL is a building platform.

[Gilgamesh Alpha]

56 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Could it be that Minecraft is perceived to be a game, and SL isn't? Even trying to explain the purpose of SL in a single, simple sentence is a tough one.

If Garry's Mod is a game, then so is Second Life as far as I'm concerned.

[Izdzan Enoch]

That's the problem with people's expectations, and the same thing has been repeated for the last 15 years or more. SL wasn't meant to be perceived as a game. It was supposed to represent a virtual world. In a way it was the internet version 2.0 in its infancy, or was supposed to be.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Oh, I agree with you that it should be more creating. But aren't our prims the same as the blocks in Minecraft? I looked at Minecraft and it was not for me.

Not at all. A minecraft block is basically a LEGO brick. Many of them are special in some way and more than the pattern of pixels on their surface. You're also not limited in how many you can place. 

Minecraft has significant depth, accommodates a board range of play styles, can easily be social and doesn't care if you forget the game part entirely and just build pretty houses (or whatever).

Looking at Minecraft and deciding "it's not for me" is exactly what this thread is about, but for SL.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

32 minutes ago, Izdzan Enoch said:

That's the problem with people's expectations, and the same thing has been repeated for the last 15 years or more. SL wasn't meant to be perceived as a game. It was supposed to represent a virtual world. In a way it was the internet version 2.0 in its infancy, or was supposed to be.

Not at all. SL wasn't meant to be a virtual world or internet or social anything. It was a test platform for an entirely different project, that due to monetary pressures (businesses gotta at least try and do some business) was pivoted into something VERY GAME LIKE .. That was kinda garbage and then quite by accident people moved in.

What matters is how it's perceived now by users joining and then failing to stick around, because unless that can be addressed, we're sunk.

[Alwin Alcott]

32 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

What matters is how it's perceived now by users joining and then failing to stick around,..

i think, let's keep it very broad who we is, that we don't know, nor we residents, and ovbious.. also not LL.

Everything what is said here is said dozens of times last 18 years, much is tried and nothing worked.

who's going to be the genius that comes up with the solution?

[cunomar]

Decide who you are trying to attract .

Professors of computer science know at a glance what sl is and whether they want to participate .

To gamers i'd assume sl is that other thing thats been around for decades .

For me sl was the discovery that i could kill time on a computer doing something other than reading news or browsing ebay .

Seems kinda pointless to me trying to attract the first two .

[Garrett Laramide]

4 minutes ago, cunomar said:

Decide who you are trying to attract .

To me that's the allure of SL. It is so multi-faceted that it can be whatever one wants it to be. SL is what you make of it. Of course, that's probably also what confuses so many people, as there isn't any one set purpose paved in stone, so people spend too much time just trying to figure out what it's about and they get frustrated and give up. SL has always been an enigma of sorts, but one that requires more time and patience to learn that most people aren't willing to commit towards the learning curve. 

[Katherine Heartsong]

2 hours ago, Garrett Laramide said:

... but one that requires more time and patience to learn that most people aren't willing to commit towards the learning curve. 

Speaking as someone who has spent 30 years designing things that are easy to use/understand, isn't this the issue? The learning curve? In my work I try to eliminate or drastically reduce the learning curve of a thing/product/process for a user. Remove the pain points. Make it seem effortless. And that begs the questions in SL ...

What are the three (let's start small) main pain points in engaging and then retaining new users? What can we agree are those three things? What can we do to eliminate or reduce them?

I'd love to be in the LL offices asking and addressing these.

Is one of them the janky new user avatars that walk like stilted robots being addressed with the new avatars that are coming? Is it isolation and a lack of anything meaningful to do? An empty arrival experience? Not understanding how to customize and personalize your avatar in terms of clothing, hair colour, etc? Lack of any concrete "directions" or help?

Heck, who is even joining SL? What are their expectations?

Why is someone willing to spend a few hours growing into something like Cyberpunk 2077 and not Second Life? (I know the analogy is no where near perfect, but it's still interesting to consider.)

*shrugs shoulders*

Edited August 18, 2022 by Katherine Heartsong

[Garrett Laramide]

7 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Speaking as someone who has spent 30 years designing things that are easy to use/understand, isn't this the issue? The learning curve? In my work I try to eliminate or drastically reduce the learning curve of a thing/product/process for a user. Remove the pain points. Make it seem effortless. And that begs the questions in SL ...

What are the three (let's start small) main pain points in engaging and then retaining new users? What can we agree are those three things? What can we do to eliminate or reduce them?

I'd love to be in the LL offices asking and addressing these.

Is one of them the janky new user avatars that walk like stilted robots being addressed with the new avatars that are coming? Is it isolation and a lack of anything meaningful to do? An empty arrival experience? Lack of any concrete "directions" or help?

Heck, who is even joining SL? What are their expectations?

Why is someone willing to spend a few hours growing into something like Cyberpunk 2077 and not Second Life? (I know the analogy is no where near perfect, but it's still interesting to consider.)

*shrugs shoulders*

If anything, I think the learning curve for certain things in SL, at least when it comes to content creation, has become steeper instead of easier. I've been away a while, but when I first joined SL flexi-prims weren't even a thing yet. But most everything could be created in world using prims and uploading custom textures at most. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but now with mesh being the big thing, most of that content has to be created client side in programs like Blender and then uploaded in-world? Sure, it makes things look nicer and more up-to-date, but it also appears to require more time, tools, and specific skillsets to create things than it once did. Somehow in that regard it feels like one step forward and two steps back. 

[Henri Beauchamp]

13 minutes ago, Garrett Laramide said:

If anything, I think the learning curve for certain things in SL, at least when it comes to content creation, has become steeper instead of easier. I've been away a while, but when I first joined SL flexi-prims weren't even a thing yet. But most everything could be created in world using prims and uploading custom textures at most. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but now with mesh being the big thing, most of that content has to be created client side in programs like Blender and then uploaded in-world? Sure, it makes things look nicer and more up-to-date, but it also appears to require more time, tools, and specific skillsets to create things than it once did. Somehow in that regard it feels like one step forward and two steps back. 

Just like you, when I joined SL, flexi prims just got implemented, and we did not yet have sculpties either... But building in SL was fun and easy, even for the newbie I was back at that time !

So, I cannot agree more (see third advice in this old post of mine) : we indeed need in-viewer (possibly with servers cooperation) build tools adapted  to SL modern features.

[Ceka Cianci]

55 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Speaking as someone who has spent 30 years designing things that are easy to use/understand, isn't this the issue? The learning curve? In my work I try to eliminate or drastically reduce the learning curve of a thing/product/process for a user. Remove the pain points. Make it seem effortless. And that begs the questions in SL ...

What are the three (let's start small) pain points in engaging and then retaining new users? What can we agree are those three things? What can we do to eliminate or reduce them?

I'd love to be in the LL offices asking and addressing these.

Is one of them the janky new user avatars that walk like stilted robots being addressed with the new avatars that are coming? Is it isolation and a lack of anything meaningful to do? An empty arrival experience? Lack of any concrete "directions" or help?

Heck, who is even joining SL? What are their expectations?

Why is someone willing to spend a few hours growing into something like Cyberpunk 2077 and not Second Life? (I know the analogy is no where near perfect, but it's still interesting to consider.)

*shrugs shoulders*

I just made an alt the other night to see what it was like landing in SL right now..

The first thing that I noticed was viewer performance.. People ghosting/ not rezzing.. People running in place lagged out. Information boards going in and out of focus constantly to where you couldn't read them.. This was on high setting..

I switched to my Firestorm viewer and had it on ultra, and  pretty much had no lag, no blurring on the  information boards and a much better experience in that area.

The second thing was, after learning only a couple of keyboard commands, I came to a crossroad to go left or right.. one was to go to the right and head off into the world  or  go to the left and continue learning the tutorials..

3rd was as soon as leaving that area, coming to a sign saying , Improve your avatar for free.. I went there and all the options are dead end  options of outdated mesh that either never had support or is outdated, which left me at a dead end still 4 days later..

The impression it leaves me with is, it's a laggy pay to win in a rush to get you to spending, rather than what it was when I came in,which was, your world your imagination.

I've been here for years and trying every one of the free options i know to get a decent avatar together and  hit a dead end every time, unless I spend money.

So it's going to be a lot harder for a new user to do it without spending. It definetly feels much more like a money grab right now than it ever has for me..

The search is another thing that they need to fix, if they are going to be sending people to the MP, which was where everything I clicked on was linked to..

They have an option to take demos out of the search and refine your search.. That sure doesn't work, AT ALL..

I refined my search and all I got was 10 pages of demos when I went from low price to highest, doing searches for the mesh body head items and much of the clothes.

The thing that was nice about SL years ago was that  you didn't need to spend money or that much to have a good second life.. but it's become this thing that feels like pay to win, way to early on.. I can see that making people feel like bailing.. because it's getting clumped right in there with the other pay to wins.

It's like putting it's worst foot forward instead of it's best. That was my impression really early on when i landed the other day...

 

ETA: I just want to add that, Coffee could never be more right in just how important the NUX mesh bodies and heads for new users will be..  Just how important they are going to need creators to step up and put good support behind The NUX's bodies and heads as well.. Because it is in their best interest as well as all of ours.

Right now if I had a supported nux body and head.. I would have been off doing other things already rather than sitting around 4 days later, trying to find things so I can stop spinning my wheels in one spot with outdated dead end products.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Garrett Laramide]

9 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Just like you, when I joined SL, flexi prims just got implemented, and we did not yet have sculpties either... But building in SL was fun and easy, even for the newbie I was back at that time !

So, I cannot agree more (see third advice in this old post of mine) : we indeed need in-viewer (possibly with servers cooperation) build tools adapted  to SL modern features.

In-viewer build tools for the current features would be a godsend. 

[Istelathis]

19 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

we indeed need in-viewer (possibly with servers cooperation) build tools adapted  to SL modern features.

I really wish we had a toolkit to build mesh items in world, even if it is not as advanced as blender, just something that allows us to manipulate shapes with more flexibility than we currently have with prims.  I mean, I really just want to make a pillow in SL, is that too much to ask for?  My poor avatar has enough neck problems as is, without having to lay down on a prims.  I also would like to be able to build a tree, to put a treehouse in - it doesn't have to be perfect, but it would be nice to have a tree that looks like a tree, and to be able to do it in world, so as to get a feel for my land and how the tree will look in it would be pretty nice.

In addition, it would give me an excuse to hangout in sandboxes and learn how other people create their work.

 

I don't think this would achieve user retention in the first ten minutes, but perhaps it would keep those who decide to stay a bit longer that it is worth investing their creativity here without the need to learn more advanced third party programs.  

[Ceka Cianci]

15 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I really wish we had a toolkit to build mesh items in world, even if it is not as advanced as blender, just something that allows us to manipulate shapes with more flexibility than we currently have with prims.  I mean, I really just want to make a pillow in SL, is that too much to ask for?  My poor avatar has enough neck problems as is, without having to lay down on a prims.  I also would like to be able to build a tree, to put a treehouse in - it doesn't have to be perfect, but it would be nice to have a tree that looks like a tree, and to be able to do it in world, so as to get a feel for my land and how the tree will look in it would be pretty nice.

In addition, it would give me an excuse to hangout in sandboxes and learn how other people create their work.

 

I don't think this would achieve user retention in the first ten minutes, but perhaps it would keep those who decide to stay a bit longer that it is worth investing their creativity here without the need to learn more advanced third party programs.  

When we could do that before those things diminished away.. There was a good distance before anyone could find a catch..

There is way less of a gap between free and the catch nowadays..

I think nowadays more than ever before, when people hear free, one of the first things they ask or look for is, where's the catch.. hehehe

It's right outside the gate the moment you step out. don't worry about all those other commands.. here,, here is a bunch of links to the market place.. Knock yourself out.

hehehehe

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Henri Beauchamp]

38 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I don't think this would achieve user retention in the first ten minutes, but perhaps it would keep those who decide to stay a bit longer that it is worth investing their creativity here without the need to learn more advanced third party programs.  

Frankly, thinking it is possible to improve the retention of new users who do not even spent 10 minutes before deciding that SL is not for them, is a mistake; the same mistake LL made back in 2009 when they removed the second name from the registration form on the pretext it would help more people to complete that form and gain a larger number of newcomers as a result (but LL since back-pedaled, and monetized the second name choice by users: I'm sure complotists are seeing an evil plan behind this all 😛).

SL is too complex to hope that computer-illiterate people, or people with a short attention span will become long term ”SL residents”. LL should not worry about them, but instead try and attract ”competent” and curious people (who are also usually among the productive and creative folks). And yes, giving them fun tools to play with is a good way to keep them coming back to SL !

Edited August 18, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Love Zhaoying]

I think the answer is Tik-Tok, short videos for short attention spans.

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Speaking as someone who has spent 30 years designing things that are easy to use/understand, isn't this the issue? The learning curve?

I think this depends on what we decide is the desired outcome.  If we are expecting to somehow manage to go mass-market, reinvent SL and have a massive influx of new people who need low friction better designed tools and interfaces to get going then yes, they are crucial.  However, I am not sure we are trying to become this mass-market thing yet.  We have a smaller problem to solve first.

If the immediate goal is to retain new members at least at the same level as the best retention peek SL has ever enjoyed then better interfaces and tools would help but it isn't that crucial to solving the whole problem.

It has been stated that new user sign-ups are not the issue, there are plenty of those.  It's what you do with them that counts.
Is the biggest problem that people are no longer bothering to complete the new user experience? or is it once they have done that they leave quickly afterwards? Has the rate of people completing the new user experience gone down from the numbers that used to?

We, the residents at least, don't know the answer to these questions and it makes a difference.

Why? The tools that were available to us all when we started are still as easy to use as they have ever been, perhaps even better.  Currently, nobody, when they go through the new user experience, is even aware of proper mesh bodies, what the rest of SL looks like, or uses very much of the viewer.  So if they logout forever before completing the new user experience then the issue is something specific to their new user experience but if that isn't what happens then the issue is the wider world experience and re-examining the new user experience over and over isn't going to help.

In either case, when SL was at it's peek, many more people stayed despite everything.
Why? Especially if the general user experience was so bad?  More importantly, what changed?  Why did they stop coming?

If, what we are trying to recapture and sustain as a short term goal at least, are the retention numbers we have previously enjoyed then we at least we need to try to find the answers to those questions.
 

[Rowan Amore]

31 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

SL is too complex to hope that computer-illiterate people, or people with a short attention span will become long term ”SL residents”. LL should not worry about them, but instead try and attract ”competent” and curious people (who are also usually among the productive and creative folks). And yes, giving them fun tools to play with is a good way to keep them coming back to SL !

I've been here almost 13 years coming in as basically computer-illiterate as you so kindly phrased it.  I've created many wooden cubes in my time here.  I don't build anything, I don't blog, I am productive in no way.  Yet here I am.  

I do agree that giving people the fun tools would be a boon for everyone but I disagree with your characterization of people who do not stay.  Some of us illiterates and non-productives will be here until the doors close.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Henri Beauchamp]

15 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I've been here almost 13 years coming in as basically computer-illiterate as you so kindly phrased it.  I've created many wooden cubes in my time here.  I don't build anything, I don't blog, I am productive in no way.  Yet here I am.  

I do agree that giving people the fun tools would be a boon for everyone but I disagree with your characterization of people who do not stay.  Some of us illiterates and non-productives will be here until the doors close.

If you stayed, then you are not among computer-illiterates... Or perhaps perseverance and curiosity largely made up for it. QED. 😜

And yes, I do believe that ”natural selection” is beneficial. This also works for virtual worlds: people who stay are resilient and/or adaptive enough, and too bad for the others...

Edited August 18, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I've been here almost 13 years coming in as basically computer-illiterate as you so kindly phrased it.  I've created many wooden cubes in my time here.  I don't build anything, I don't blog, I am productive in no way.  Yet here I am.  

I do agree that giving people the fun tools would be a boon for everyone but I disagree with your characterization of people who do not stay.  Some of us illiterates and non-productives will be here until the doors close.

I agree it's not the creative side of SL that is the big draw.. At least not in the area that I was dropped.

Most of the conversations that I had, as well as overheard, had to do with either sex or how can I make money or avatar improvement.. It's a good chance that wanting to make money had a lot to do with the stuff in the store there, that cost 1L or more, or the things they were seeing from the market place links.

I've been back and forth to the start area for the last 4 days just listening and having conversations as well and trying to see if I left a stone unturned to a path of making an avatar that didn't cost anything..

I've yet to hear or have a conversation about creating or creative, unless I brought it up..

Streamers are probably a good bit of advertising for SL and we already know sex is..

 

I can't say what goes on in other drop spots.. This spot was created by an SL user and if users are doing start up areas now.. Then it's gonna be luck  of the draw on which experiences they end up with.. But no matter what, the free things they get are pretty consistent throughout the whole world.

I really don't see the majority of people coming in as coming because it's so creative here.

[Ceka Cianci]

29 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

If you stayed, then you are not among computer-illiterates... Or perhaps perseverance and curiosity largely made up for it. QED. 😜

And yes, I do believe that ”natural selection” is beneficial. This also works for virtual worlds: people who stay are resilient and/or adaptive enough, and too bad for the others...

I think people come for the party, but stay for the show..

I believe the big problem is in finding their seats..  hehehehe

[kali Wylder]

Currently it costs about $10,000 LL to get a mesh shape, head and skin to go with it.  More if you want some clothes.  Still more if you want to decorate a home. Not to mention you need to pay rent or premium for a place to live. Add that to the learning curve to get those things and use them.  It's no wonder people give up and leave before discovering the magic.