Simplicity and the Virtual Tipping Point

Simplicity will come when 3spaces join the rest of media in the web browser to be smoothed in the rock tumbler that is web development and beat upon by millions of people who won't install, won't tolerate lag, and won't think twice about clicking away.

Simplicity is certainly the issue that will take virtual worlds to the masses. Though experiences like Second Life allow nearly endless customization the learning curve is much to steep for widespread acceptance.

How will virtual worlds be made simple? At the least a good, instant, and free selection of attractive avatars and clothing. Very clear and easy to understand goals are needed too. Exactly what aspect of a 3D community that will gain widespread appeal is still a bit vague so flexibility will be very important.

My .02

Browser based capability if not using a dedicated client

Low hardware requirements. Able to be ran on the majority of existing consumer PCs

Both inworld and online (web) shopping for real and virtual items.

Text based client available for being online without using too much screen real estate.

The ability to be 2 or more places at once. Similar to having multiple windows open with a text based IM program.

Accessibility from mobile devices

Who will do it? IMVU is the closest now but doesn't have the large persistant space that would truely make them a virtual word.. Most likely the first winner (in numbers at least) will be a console maker who can leverage an already connected userbase and control costs with the advantage of uniform hardware and software.

Unless said vendor finds a key to make life simple, not sure it's going to happen, although a web-based program with a stable platform would be the critical components. At this point, as a former newbie and now SL mentor, I find the key to retention is human interaction at the starting point.

I don't want to sound like an elitist here, but the story of learning process too hard and long is plain wrong. I was wondering why I hear that over and over again before I became a mentor. Then, when I got back to the orientation and help islands I was amazed by the state of mind of some noobs. I am not talking about just a couple of them, it's a large percent of them. And it's not about building, scripting and other "advanced" skills. We are talking about basics of use of the virtual environment. And let's have in mind that each of newcomers have basic skills of (non-SL) use of computer and internet. They had to find secondlife.com in their browsers and fill in the (not quite short) registration form.

So... do you know how many people have problems to get out of help island? For those of you who forgot those moments... help island is the one where you teleport from orientation island (where you do the tutorial), that means you already teleported once. You spend some time there, get used to the world, pick some freebies, make some appearance. It has a panel which teleports you to the infohub on the mainland. And that panel has big green rotating EXIT sign. It screams so one can see it from almost any point of the island. When clicked, panel gives you a notecard and a landmark. So what's the problem?

Or take the other from the list of most popular noob questions: "How do I find [insert something here]?" When one starts new piece of software for the first time, the common thing to do is to check the interface. Just take a glimpse through the menus and buttons. Or am I freaking software usage genius because of doing that? Especially if there is a row of always-on-the-screen blue buttons. If they are so accessible, they might be useful. And the fifth of them says search. What could that be? Search is not something introduced with second life, it is a regular part of both the internet and your desktop.

I know that we all have our moments of not seeing the obvious, but these are not the rare cases. Spend one hour mentoring and you will have at least one of each questions. So many times I was tempted not to answer those. If they are so stupid they better not go to the mainland. Let's live in a smaller but happier community. But, on the other hand, I tend not to be a fascist and answer silently sighing behind my monitor.

It is not about simplicity. Most of the time, people are lazy to read and even more lazy to think. They want others to answer questions they should find answers themselves. They want to be taken by the hand and guided. They want to enjoy their idiocy. And sometimes we help them. We answer their wishes. We partner them in their crime against themselves.

I am not saying that initiation process cannot be better. There is a lot of space for improvements, but doing that with the main idea of making things simpler will probably be a bad favour for both the community and the platform.

I'll use the opportunity and post one more link about low retention in second life. Maybe somebody is interested. And I'll repost this at http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/make-it-simpler-no-thanks

Nick

nice graphic to illustrate a good question.

Yes indeed Second Life has an Achilles' heel but I'm not sure if it is the inworld complexity. I think before the mainstream user ever reaches the orientation islands of Second Life they may encounter problems, incompatible graphics cards or operating systems ( Kaneva and other worlds also have these problems).

There is a solution to this, of course, you have to control the hardware. So your question was Who will make virtual worlds simple in 2008? I'll give you a hint of my answer with this quote "On November 19, 2005, the PS2 became the fastest game console to reach 100 million units shipped, accomplishing the feat within 5 years and 9 months from its launch."

In 2008 Sony could do the same again with PS3 @home in less time, maybe. That is if Msofts .live and xbox live don't eat the market.(I have no proof that they are developing a virtual world to leverage their market share but it would be stupid to think they are not) When you marry game spaces with social spaces you address one of the reasons people leave social worlds, you give them something to do, something to socialise around.

As for the trade off between the wonderfully creative avatars of second life and the cookie cutter ones of Kaneva, personally I enjoy the ability to express myself through creating or dressing my avatar but this is not for everyone and of course there is also 'The paradox of Choice' http://url.ie/6k4

cheers
Joi Koi
http://www.twitter.com/joikoi

My sig on slDevelopers.com is a quote by Leonardo DaVinci

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. "

However, I do think that SL has the ability to be that simple interface. With their separation of the grid from the viewer and Open sourcing of the viewer, I think there is enormous possibility to create a much simpler interface into SL.

Some companies are already doing that (AjaxLife and Movable Life) and I think that is a testament to SL's future possibilities.

Maybe something that can be done is to connect people with groups that they would like to chat with, instead of sending them to Help island. Besides, why should you start at Help island, is SL so complicated that you are expected to need help right off the bat? Maybe, instead, when someone creates an account they check another box that will start them somewhere more relevant where others with similar interests might be.

I think the other part of the problem is that people are showing up to SL to "check it out", but are expecting that it is a singular thing (shop, socialize, whatever). The old mediums of TV, Radio, and even simple web pages all guide you ( or force you) down a few paths, and when they don't immediately *see* what they are looking for they are confused.

Ric, I agree about set of good avies and clothing given at the start. But I don't get the "goals" part. What are tho goals that could be clearly stated to a noob?

sorry. wrong,
The winners in virtual worlds will be based on depth and complexity. Not this analysis of "simplicity" as a tipping point reason - it never truly is. Even as a "product" as rightfully -FINALLY -descibed by Geen Yoon SL has been the focus and the only "usable" VR world product in a decade NOT because of any simplicity illusion, but because its a mess of contraditions and bad designs that offers serendipty and surprise. The exact things required for successful immersive media and the "world" of interest around it.

Ask yourself this question. Would you even be reading this post without the media message of the Second Life Product from 2004-7.?
Mass usage and simplicity of user interface are not shown to be a parrallel in the history of tech devices or services. Nor do they predominately name the winners in sales or adoption.

Care to Set a VCR? or even more to this blog readers heart...
mac vs windows 95 anyone?;)

larryr

www.cube3.com
www.starbasec3.com
www.mediaverse.net

SL user retention is poor. 90% of new users drop off at Orientation Island. It is up to individuals, businesses and institutions in SL to provide a good user experience and do what is necessary to recruit new users and increase retention rates.

At SLCC this year, the Business Track keynote was delivered by Sibley Verbeck (CEO Electric Sheep). His advice was to "AOLify" the experience. Make it so easy it feels almost effortless.

Customizing the experience is now possible. LL has opened the Registration API (sort of), which enables anyone (pretty much) to set up and host their own registration. This means that companies, organizations, clubs, etc can control the experience from the very beginning. Bring people in from a website. Provide a custom registration process. Offer prefab avatars that are more highly customized than what you find on LL Orientation (no noob skins and hair - ugh!). Streamline the orientation process to make it enjoyable and efficient. Provide an index or simplified search that enables new users to get directly to content that interests them when they are ready to leave orientation. In a nutshell, engage the user in an enjoyable experience and get him/her through orientation and out into the world.

http://3dmented.typepad.com/3dmented/2007/09/exclusive-inter.html has some interesting points on simplistic browser based 3d interfaces.

It really does depend on:
. who the target market(s) is/are
. will they have the hardware required to run your platform [or are they likely to buy it! - PC sales are declining in Japan due to increased competition from other devices, and this trend is predicted to follow to other developed nations]
. what is it that your users will need to functionally satisfy and also emotionally engage them for a sustainable experience, given the competitive landscape now evolving for their $$

PC/MAC/Linux Box?
Phone?
Game console?
Nintendo DS? [don't laugh...20 million sold in Japan now and Nintendo has a stated ambition to have at least one Nintendo device in every Japanese household.]

You need ONE year to learn how to walk in Real Life !
You need almost TWO years before you can communicate meaningfully !
You need SIX years before you can be let loose and sent to school !
You need almost 10 - 12 years before you can consider yourself independent of your parents
You need 18 years before you are considered safe enough to drive a car
You need 21 years before you are allowed to vote and do other stuff !!
.... OK give or take a few years ... but that is the order of magnitude of timescales
why does it take that long ? because the world is complex, life is complex ...unless you want to live at the level of insects !!

Second Life or any other Virtual World is a reflection of the underlying complexity of Real Life ... so it can be as simple as the underlying reality is ...

OK ... i agree that people in SecondLIfe are physical adults with better mental maturity .. but then you can shorten the learning curve only so much ... and not any more !! without the danger of falling into utter triviality !!

Of course better bandwidth, better servers, better architecture and better programming will help ... but friends let us get used to a level of complexity and stop complaining ..

after all do we complain about our extended childhood in Real Life ???

The reason folks are worried about SL being too complex for the average user is very simple: If people don't begin to become paid members in greater numbers, and continue to renew their memberships with regularity, LL may fail and die. It might fail and die even if there was 100% user retention, tomorrow (due to technical issues with the platform). So what can we do?

Most of us who are concerned about the success of SL can't help LL solve their technical problems, but we CAN address the issue of quality of experience and availability of relevant content (as well as the ability to FIND relevant content). The fact that the vast majority of people never return after their first visit indicates that there is a serious problem with user experience. For the technically savvy (elite) it is easy (and engaging, and rewarding, etc) to go through the learning process, but there are other types of users that might be interested in becoming involved but are dropping off early. So the question becomes "why do people drop off?" Is it because they find it frustrating to use? Is it because the content isn't interesting? Maybe they have no idea there is anything they can do once they leave orientation -- they have no clue and don't have the tools to find out. Whatever it is, it needs to be addressed.

Yes katie, but let's face it... SL is not the next web. And it will never be easy to use as (most parts of the) web is. And not much can be done about that. As Prithwis said, it is the inner complexity of virtual environment that makes things like they are. Yes, many things can be improved, from interface to orientation process, but it will always be too complicated for an average user. It is social network that happens in real time, in 3D space which is huge and due to freedom of creating very diverse and chaotic, all that is followed by economy that is based on virtual money which can be transfered to US$. Sounds simple? No. But, as we all know, the previous sentence addresses just the part of second life experience. And one expect to learn it in one day? Yeah right.

"Maybe they have no idea there is anything they can do once they leave orientation -- they have no clue and don't have the tools to find out."

I think this is probably close, but I think the "anything they can do" can't solved by sending them to art galleries or other static builds. Yes, we lose some percentage to the orientation process itself, but a very large percentage of the users I talk to in Second Life met someone very quickly in world. That person was more experienced and took them to a few interesting places and introduced them to a few other people... soon you have an addicted user.

What does this mean? Simply that a Social Virtual World falls flat on its face if a new user is not engaged fairly quickly in social interactions. I have heard stories of some pretty difficult journeys to mastery of Second Life's controls that were caused by the desire to continue the social interaction. Conversely, I also note that many who blog about Second Life as a short term failed fling rarely mention finding any social group or friends. The common refrain is "Second Life is empty". It is empty, if you have no one share the experience with.

My reply is lengthy... forgive me!
Speaking totally out of self interest here: I invest a lot of my time and energy in SL and would like to see it survive and grow and evolve into something that sticks around for a long time.

I am not convinced that 3D Virtual Worlds by their very nature can't have mass appeal. And I do think that ultimately there will be a 3D layer on the Web -- robust and secure for ecommerce. The people who will make a 3D Web viable are probably 10 years old or younger now (or not yet a twinkle in their mama's eye).

SL no more needs to be learned in a day than any other new technology. People need time to learn new things. But to keep the user engaged long enough to get through the learning curve and keep them interested, the experience needs to be rewarding from the start. Look at online games. Obviously there's a learning curve when beginning a new game. What gets people over the hump is a reward system that makes learning pleasurable. There is a lot of info out there about applying game techniques to learning tools. Why not apply SOME of the same techniques to SL. Not to go so far as to remove the "free will" aspect of SL... but enough to keep new users having fun until they are ready to remove the training wheels.

IDEA: Maybe the new user could arrange for "student housing" while still on orientation island and tp straight there. This way they can get out into the world and be a noob in private. Maybe in that apartment there is a way to shop for new hair/clothes/skin/AO and get it delivered straight to their inventory. Maybe the apartment could be somehow hosted by someone or a group that wants to volunteer their space for this purpose. The new user would then have a starter community to tap into if they wish, loosely based on interest. At a set time they would have to vacate the property or start paying rent. I can already see that this utopian plan probably has flaws galore! Just brainstorming a little.

The notion of "empty world" is an interesting topic. I just tried out Kinset recently, which is "the first online 3D shopping mall," or something like that. Talk about an empty world. You don't even have an avatar, so you can't see if anyone else is also shopping. Personally, I often check the map in SL before I tp somewhere because I tend to like to avoid shopping where there are already a lot of people. I choose an empty world in that regard. It is the marketers that are worried about "empty world." They just don't get it yet. They are going to have to change the way they measure success to get something out of SL. They are also going to have to change the way they market in a community-based environment. But that is another topic altogether...

From personal experiences I tend to believe in that. But then... mentors can help you change your clothes, they will tell you some tricks and what to expect on mainland... but they will rarely take your hand and guide you around. That happens, but very very rarely. That needs a mentor in the nice mood to do that and a noob who is interesting in first couple of sentences.
One has to think about own entertainment. It might be heavy in the first days in the unknown world... but that would happen if you land alone in a new city. Right?

You have hit the nail on the head, Nick. And precisely on the sweet spot, too.

This might be a revelation that is hard to accept for every seasoned SLer, but it is very true, and sadly so. While I prefer the freedom and the richness of expression, that Second Life allows me to any other platform on the market today, the first hours and days in Second Life are incredibly hard for anyone without any experience in MMO platforms and online forums. When I entered Second Life nearly 3 years ago I had a strong motivation to 'learn the system' (it was for an already defined project). Still, I would have given up after an hour had I not DEMANDED ongoing telephone support from another team member who was more experienced already.

And platforms like There and Kaneva are the obvious proof that it does not HAVE to be complicated to learn movement, orientation and communication in a virtual world.

The problem with Second Life is, that it has been created by a bunch of enthusiastic and extremely clever guys, who could not imagine how average stupid people will handle their creation. You get the same results nearly anytime when you let the engineers design the finished project. These guys are clever, extremely clever. Thats, why they can not imagine how someone can NOT understand their perfectly logically designed systems. But the majority of users are not as clever as them - and a lot of those who are clever, do not have the patience to try and understand the mental models of the engineer designers by trial and error or by reading thick manuals.

You are asking:
> What steps do virtual worlds vendors need to take in order to make this whole
> concept simple?

Simple answer:
what most other professional software companies are doing:
(1) focus on usability
(2) apply principles of user-centered design
(3) user testing
(4) user testing
(5) user testing
...
(8) kill or hide the features that less than 80% of users are using regularly
(9) change the product accordingly to the results of user testing

In the software industry of today one of the most important aspects of a mass market product is "usability". And processes like UCD (user centered design) and its derivatives make sure that usability is achieved efficiently and systematically. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe etc. are spendings tens of millions of dollars for user testing. And they are testing their products with seasoned users of older versions and with bloody newbies alike.

Linden Lab does "user testing" with beta versions and beta grids where usually only the most active and seasoned users are involved.

Every new game that comes on the market is tested by hundreds or thousands of users - hardcore gamers AND newbies. Look at some of the most complex role play games: you can enjoy them within minutes by learning only a few basic features. If you play them for longer periods of time they can get extremely complex and challenging. But all of these new features are introduced slowly, step by step. And the challenges grow slowly - in step with the level of your training.

In Second Life there is no training at all available from the developer company after the basic training on orientation island.

I am not sure, why they do it this way. But I am afraid that as long as this company's DNA is defined by enthusiastic and clever engineers this won't change much.

This is NO rocket science. The principles described above have been applied with other products before - and not only with software products. And only when those products became simple (not simplistic) and easy to use true "mass market" adoption happened.

There are many, many examples for this principle besides software products and platforms. Does anyone truly believe, that hundreds of millions of cameras would be sold worldwide if all the models would be as complicated (and powerful and flexible) as a high end SLRs? ;)

Keeping this short, I don't think simplicity is the main factor that will bring virtual worlds to the masses.

Are mobile phones any simpler now than they were 5 years ago? Definitely not. More people use phones now because we find new ways of using them and integrating them into our lives.

Mass adoption of virtual worlds (i.e. bridging the gap between the early adopters and early majority) will be driven by 'Vertical worlds'. These are metaverses catered towards specific genres or interest groups. In this context. the reason for entering (and staying) is not because of the technology but because of the relevance of the environment and interaction in relation to the target market.

Simplicity IS the key to mass market adoption, Nic.
While I hate to disagree with you, I don't know any mass market product, (at least a few 100 Million users worldwide), where the basic functionalities are experienced as 'complicated' or 'complex'. The example "mobile phone" which is cited often in similar discussions, is no case against this theory but actually supports it. Many modern phones suffer from feature bloat, no question. But their basic functionalities are not complicated. The most important functions of a telephone are dialing, accepting a call, talking - and maybe texting. These functionalities are 'simple' to use with nearly all modern phones; some 'smart' (!) phones ARE an exception ;)

Mobile phones were rather complex devices before the current the digital networks started. I owned two analog 'mobile' phones, in case you should ask ...

The same argument goes for word procession software, VCRs, cameras, television sets, automobiles etc. etc.. All of these products were fairly complicated to handle in their first incarnations - and were used only by 'early adopters'. Mass market adoption was always preceded by standardization and simplification of the basic functionalities . This does not mean that there are no complexities hidden in these products - simple does not equal simplistic.

Actually, I agree, that 'vertical worlds' will be important for the industry in the next years. I very much doubt, that these will be very successful with the retention rates typical with Second Life.

I guess we'll have to wait and see Markus.

You've made some good points but I think you may have dropped the ball a little on your last comment. One of the reasons why retention rates are low in SL is because some people find nothing to do - nothing that specifically interests them. Vertical worlds are based on specific themes and on this basis should retain users.

But hey, I could be wrong, you could be wrong, we could all be wrong. That's the great thing about virtual worlds - there's no true experts. Just people with opinions. Who decides? 'The others' - consumers/individuals. If they find worlds that interest them initially and then keep them interested over time then that's where success will be found.