New Linden Homes land page coming!

[Nika Talaj]

In the SSP thread, @Daniel Voyager drew our attention to LL's announcement of a new Linden Homes portal, replacing the current land page.  I thought this deserves its own thread.

  

6 hours ago, Daniel Voyager said:

The lab just announced that a new Linden Homes store will be launching soon. 

"Coming very soon, the new Linden Home Store will make selecting your new home much easier. With this upgrade, we're putting the power of choice and control right at your fingertips".

"The new Linden Home Store looks and works great on your mobile device’s browser. Whether you're on your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can now view and select from all Linden Homes".

"By popular demand, you can browse all the Linden Homes even if you already own one, you are not logged in, you do not yet have a Premium subscription, or the Linden Home model you want is not currently available".

Check the preview here.

What does everyone think of the new look ? 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nika Talaj

[Frigga Freidman]

I'll repeat the basics of my critique here and add some new thoughts:

1) An initial page (not shown in available preview) ought to feature all the themes, preferably in alphabetical order rather than release order. The current order is irrelevant or confusing to new users.

2) Links from that first page should provide a view of all house models within that theme, but clearly state that it is not necessary to choose houses at this level from the LP. (This has been confusing to new users in the past.)

3) An alphabetical index of all house style names is useful but such an integrated listing is not helpful as an entry point!

4) Better, perspective-corrected photos should be used, preferably ones which give an indication of the type of landscaping found in that theme.

5) If parcels in a theme are currently available, an icon or color banding on the theme's name should be used to signal this. But users should also be given the option to see only currently-available themes.

6) Pre-Bellisserian house styles should not be included, unless LL commits to continuing those regions.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Frigga Freidman

[Nika Talaj]

Kudos, LL, on allowing users who already have a LH to easily browse others!  BUT ... I find this preview confusing.   Some comments about the UI:

• The upper half of the screen pertains to your current home.  I hope this part of the preview is not being shown on every page of new home choices?  If so, WHY?  If it is being shown, then it should be more clearly delineated from the new home list - with both the current home and the "What Next?" banner sharing the same background color.
• In the preview's home choice section, there is a mix of themes and individual home styles.  For example, the "Log Home" tile is a theme within the Bellisseria continent, and the Log Home theme has four home styles.  The "Maple" tile is a home style of the Tahoe theme within the First Generation home continents.  Mixing themes and individual homes styles in one list is UNBELIEVABLY CONFUSING.
• Assuming that LL sorts out the themes vs. home styles confusion in the previous bullet, let me assure the designers of this page that there is NOT ONE Linden Home resident who knows all the individual home style names, and I would be amazed if anyone had ever made an alphabetical list of them.  Presenting a list of home styles from different themes and generations all mixed together in an alphabetical list would not be useful.
• However you structure the list, it needs to include ALL home styles themes (which I think is LL's intent), and clearly highlight the ability to change home styles in any parcel of that theme, regardless of current availability.  However, once you do that, you need to provide a visual indication as to whether homes of that style theme are available to be claimed right now.
• Before a person dives in to choose a home from a list, links to inworld demo areas should be offered.
• I see under the What Next banner that under the "Meet Your New Neighbors" that there is a community portal?  What is that?  I can think of a few great and helpful things it could be, but what is it really?

ETA: Once you choose a home, I hope LL also redesigns the claim confirmation page to do away with that badly placed tiny little box you have to check.  That is incredibly awkward on a phone screen.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nika Talaj
clarify point 4

[Chloe Bunny]

I hope they keep the current land page "receipt lady"

[Sid Nagy]

Let's wait and see.
After all it is a Linden Lab implementation. So it normally will take some time before it halfway functions and they call it a day.
Then it is time to see what we have gotten or miss or what could or should have been done easily better.

Want some?

Edited September 28, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Frigga Freidman]

50 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Let's wait and see.
After all it is a Linden Lab implementation. So it normally will take some time before it halfway functions and they call it a day.
Then it is time to see what we have gotten or miss or what could or should have been done easily better.

 

Actually, the time to make observations and suggestions is before the design is fully embedded and the product is released. The comments so far aren't sniping or being critical for the sake of being critical. Some of us have actual experience with UI design and lots of experience being users and helping users. It's easy to overlook things when you're immersed in and excited about a project.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Frigga Freidman

[Teresa Firelight]

I am confused. Is this showing available homes only? or is it showing all homes so people have an idea of what their options are and if they want to wait for something to become available. Also, I STRONLY feel that the Belli Homes and original older style homes should be separated and not mixed together

 

[Nika Talaj]

1 hour ago, Frigga Freidman said:

Actually, the time to make observations and suggestions is before the design is fully embedded and the product is released. The comments so far aren't sniping or being critical for the sake of being critical. Some of us have actual experience with UI design and lots of experience being users and helping users. It's easy to overlook things when you're immersed in and excited about a project.

Hmm, indeed.  This preview does look to be a pretty early mockup. 

It's NOT easy to design a UI of which you are not an active user.  If @Patch Linden were to lay out a 2-page set of requirements and subcontract the design of this function to @Frigga Freidman (for example!), I'm betting that this subcontractor could quickly find a small group of expert users to review her best shot at a design, and LL would rather rapidly have a Linden Home external interface that would be both rather easy to implement and easy to use.

Early on in my UI design education, I was taught that in-depth application knowledge is the most important requirement for success in GUI design.  That's why medical device companies send their engineers to observe hospital operations and shift changes.  Hard for me to believe that any Linden has spent hours and hours claiming homes via the LH land page.

[Persephone Emerald]

This looks like a good start, and I appreciate that LL is giving us a preview to comment on before going live with a new Linden Homes page.

The problem of the old style Linden Homes still remains, however. If LL does indeed plan to eliminate them, allowing more residents to move into them is only going to mean more unhappy people when they have to move out of them. One possibility might be to maintain only one old LH continent - the one with the dragon cave.

If this is what LL wants to do, then they should allow users to take old style homes only on that one continent and should encourage existing old style LH owners to move to that continent. That one continent is still made up of many regions - as many as any of the current LH themes. The 3 other old style LH continents could then be deleted and their currently used server space could be used for new regions - possibly including coastal and water traffic ones.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

The only thing I would say is that since they can't fit all the home types on page one "above the fold" they should default sort them either randomly on each refresh, or showing belli first, then old, and sorted within those by 'most vacancies' to 'least'. And then a pull down to switch between a variety of other sort methods.

 

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

Another thing I suggest is that this page have a link to this here Linden Homes forum, and links to things like the new Belli help group, the 2 places that have preview homes, and maybe one of the 'community gathering hubs' - like the old lodge that was the first of and now often forgotten about one of those.

Why?

A place to ask questions
A place to interactively preview options
A place to meet your first set of fellow linden home residents

- A community focus like this would go a long way to helping ease people in.

 

 

[Eirynne Sieyes]

While it's reasonable, the problem with limiting the number of old LH regions in order to concentrate them also forces affected residents to give up the neighbors and surroundings they are used to. Good luck with that one. But maybe they will get first dibs on the new shoreline to incentivize moving to Belli.  (Let's all run and get us some old LH's before it's too late!)

Does anybody remember how they got residents out of mainland and into Zindra?

Edited September 28, 2023 by Eirynne Sieyes

[LittleMe Jewell]

While I am glad that they thought about a redesign of those pages, as with many of their new or modified things, I'm once again left thinking that they didn't bother to get any real users to review the design & function and provide feedback.

[Polenth Yue]

I'm not a fan of having the house styles on multiple tiny pages as people are more likely to miss them than if they have to scroll. We already have this issue with the current page where people don't know they have to click to see more styles. The main reason a lot of content sites went over to the endless tiny pages was to sell more advert space, which isn't something they need to worry about with the home selection page. It's more important to see all the house styles in one list on one page, so people can easily consider which one they want without having to remember if it was on page two and which ones were on page one again.

I'd hope the old styles will be removed soon, because mixing them in like this is just going to encourage people to pick them and be confused. If nothing else, push them to the end of the list.

[Brianna Pfalz]

At this point anything is welcome. :)

[Sparkle Bunny]

On 9/29/2023 at 12:06 AM, Polenth Yue said:

I'd hope the old styles will be removed soon, because mixing them in like this is just going to encourage people to pick them and be confused.

Well, whoever did this mockup certainly wasn't briefed on the 1.0 homes being deprecated, so maybe they've changed their minds and decided not to bother getting rid of them after all? In which case, yes, there will definitely be more takeup of the older homes if they're presented in this way. You can't treat Bellisserian themes and old individal home styles as equivalent, because it then looks like there's far more variety among the latter. Given the time they've invested in demo regions and mentoring, it seems like a really weird backward step to suddenly change tack and start funneling people back to Meadowbrook.

[AzureWaves]

5 tries only in a day means you cant even try all of the themes shown, so annoyed

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, AzureWaves said:

5 tries only in a day means you cant even try all of the themes shown, so annoyed

There are 2 Demo regions, if people want to see how the houses look and walk around in them.

[Rowan Amore]

Maybe they should offer the old regions to the Plus members since those parcels are all 512.  They might get more people choosing that option than no membership at all if it includes a home.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Maybe they should offer the old regions to the Plus members since those parcels are all 512.  They might get more people choosing that option than no membership at all if it includes a home.

Maybe they could offer all the 512 m parcels to Plus members? - old style Linden Homes, Newbrook, Sakura, or Campers. I don't know how many empty Campers there are, but there are plenty of empty 512 m homes in the other themes. 

[Rowan Amore]

12 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Maybe they could offer all the 512 m parcels to Plus members? - old style Linden Homes, Newbrook, Sakura, or Campers. I don't know how many empty Campers there are, but there are plenty of empty 512 m homes in the other themes. 

I actually feel they should leave Belli to Premium and Premium Plus and leave the old Linden home regions to ONLY Plus members.  As in, they wouldn't be available to Premium and Premium Plus unless those accounts already have one.

Since they bothered adding them to the land page, one should assume they aren't getting rid of them?   It just seems like a great option for Plus accounts not interested in trying to find mainland to purchase and any home counting against the tiny prim allowance on a 512 parcel.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

On 9/28/2023 at 3:12 PM, Eirynne Sieyes said:

Does anybody remember how they got residents out of mainland and into Zindra?

Yes.

They announced that "here is a new maturity policy that we are refining. It will go into effect on X date. If as a result of this policy your build is no longer allowed on G or M land, here is a place to file a ticket to swap for the same amount of land on the new continent.

Then a bit later they opened up the new continent for us all to go and look around. People showed up to look at all the land - rightly pointed out the bad move of putting roads split on region borders (but it was too late to fix), and we had massive drama over child AVs...

Then they 'open the gates' for the people who had put in tickets. Some method was used to figure out who would get to pick first - I was on an old account and barely knew up from down back then so I was not a landowner with a qualifying piece of land. All the folks with tickets got their spots, then the remaining land was rapidly taken by land barons who split it all into 16m plots and put up ad farms in clear violation of the TOS... so the drama ensued again.

The current major land barons over there came about BECAUSE of that first round of land barons. The current crop were the people with the ability to buy up those first guy's ad farms and micro parcels and just sit on them for years until they could get the land next to them and repair the damage...

Love them or hate them for their modern era jacked up prices and lots they won't sell - at first they did us a service.

As for the people who refused to move - claiming they could fly under the radar because "linden lab never enforces anything anyway" - some of them were right, many of them got in trouble and had their builds returned on them. Every now and then some fool still pops up thinking the TOS does not apply to them - and half of them are right so the other half keep trying to get away with stuff...

 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by UnilWay SpiritWeaver

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I actually feel they should leave Belli to Premium and Premium Plus and leave the old Linden home regions to ONLY Plus members.  As in, they wouldn't be available to Premium and Premium Plus unless those accounts already have one.

Yeah.

That said though; I think the 512 plus accounts and the 512 belli lots both work to encourage people to get mainland. Letting those into Belli, or even into the old linden homes would likely empty out more mainland than they want emptied out.

No one over there is willing to the extremely harsh move that would actually make mainland attractive: give much of it a covenant whilst NOT forcing that covenant on all of it. Maybe there are some metrics about how many people just got rid of their accounts instead of moving during the Zindra move that are behind that. But the new 'plus' accounts seem purpose built to breath some life into mainland.

 

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Yeah.

That said though; I think the 512 plus accounts and the 512 belli lots both work to encourage people to get mainland. Letting those into Belli, or even into the old linden homes would likely empty out more mainland than they want emptied out.

No one over there is willing to the extremely harsh move that would actually make mainland attractive: give much of it a covenant whilst NOT forcing that covenant on all of it. Maybe there are some metrics about how many people just got rid of their accounts instead of moving during the Zindra move that are behind that. But the new 'plus' accounts seem purpose built to breath some life into mainland.

 

I've been a premium member almost from day one.  I never had a Linden home since the 512 allotment when I first became premium was ridiculously small.  I rented on private estates until 2020 when I purchased a parcel on Horizons with double prims.

Since Plus members ONLY have 512 free, the old homes are perfect, IMO.

I actually wonder what % of Plus members even bother buying mainland.

[Polenth Yue]

39 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I actually wonder what % of Plus members even bother buying mainland.

Plus seems more geared to people who want to start shops. It's a way of getting some starting land that can be commercial and is not going to disappear tomorrow, but without having to make the full jump to premium or premium plus.

As far as the old houses go, we were told the system is old and can't be updated the way the new system can be. So keeping them around wouldn't be sustainable. Even if that wasn't the case, they're not a good advert for Second Life. I've seen people selecting them by mistake and being disappointed, because it wasn't all the things that were promised for the premium homes. The best case scenario is they say something and can be directed to the newer homes, but I wouldn't be surprised if some just quietly dropped their premium because their house wasn't as nice as the ones at the demo.