Orientation Spaces

 

Activity 7

Today I went to visit some orientation island to analyse how they approach new users (newbies) and what tools they use help them learn better. I spend some time mainly in two places:

• Orientation partly interactive, Virtual Ability (135,124,23)
• NMC Orientation (107,114, 39)

I went to see these places as I’m playing the role of newbies with following basic characteristics:

• I don’t know how to control my avatar  
• I don’t know how to fly
• I don’t know how to change my camera view

I first went to “orientation partly interactive“ and find myself in a big circle highlighting how to control my avatar for moving around… As a person who likes smart design, i have to admit that I loved that place. They had very big notice boards which will give you the ability to read easily with a wooden flat surface to walk, highlighted with green big arrows. The path was so clear that there was no chance of missing them. Moreover the side walk was designed in a way that avatars will stay in the boundaries. Notices there are all a new comer need to know with an actual exercise next to it, to make sure they will learn before they leave, such as dancing floor and bon fine place to sit. They have extended this approach for appearance as well on how to handle boxed of cloths and cloths them self with providing users with examples and freebies.

In the midway a lady which was a mentor there approached me asking whether or not I need some help. I asked her “what is the most difficult thing here?“ and she replied that “for most people, getting this long list of activities in the one session is a bit difficult, not because of the design but the understanding and remembering the actions themselves“. I was lucky to meet an avatar there and ask him for his view on the island. He was so happy with his progress based on the design of the whole session and felt that now he has the ability to handle the avatar. However, I find some miner design problems that I even mention it to the mentor. One of them was related to the flying experience where they put boundaries for users to fly within but there were a big chance that in one or two moments the camera will roll out because of the limited space. The other problem that I faced was the narrow door entrances for whole who still don’t know how to control their avatar perfectly. Other than that everything was perfect J

After that I went to see NMC and from the first moment I realized that the island is more advanced in comparison to previous one, this in not only on the design side but avatars abilities as well. The information provided there could vary from very basic steps to a bit more advances situations. Although, there where different sections to provide what avatars might need even in later stages of their SL but I didn’t quite liked the place as an island for complete newbies. These are lots of things that can be changed to help avatars in learning. Notice boards were added with pictures that would help a lot to know how to handle but at the same time they were positioned higher than normal notice boards which avatars might need to have a step back in order to be about to read. This might then effect the ability to read all the details for some avatars. On the other hand, each notice was places in a office (kind of) place which avatars should go through it, for that each time an avatar should walk straight, then turn left/ right, move a bit closer to the board and again come back the same way, turn and again move straight, and all of these to just see a slide. There was a train kind of thing that will move avatars from one side to the other, but it would not stop at the end, which means if avatars don’t know that they should click on “stand up“ they will be in a loop.

I found some time to have a look at two are places as well like:

• RL student orientation area, Campus (172, 90, 24) and
• Orientation Station, Dore (32, 99)

When I reached the “RL student area“ there was a notice board with a message to give a notecard which I though this might be a bit advance for new people and I was right. I find it more difficult to go through the area trying to act like newbies. Later on, I went to “orientation station“ which was more challenging for that others which Without camera controls and right avatar movements there was no way to go around. The island was designed based on different rooms for each area which will limit the place and with a wrong avatar move the view would be in complete different place. There were a lot of stairs as well which don’t have any edges to prevent avatars from falling down either.

Visiting all of these places made me realize how different approaches can help new people with different bacjgrounds go through learning curve smoothly and if I have to rank them based on how helpful they will be for very new avatars, I will announce the “Orientation partly interactive“ the WINNER.