Usability and Virtual World Design

[Azwaldo Villota]

I have a new project and invite you to suggest locations to visit.

I will examine particular elements in Second Life® with the goal of identifying useful design criteria or guidelines that could improve the effectiveness of educational content.

I know that I could learn a great deal about effective VW design if I were part of a conversation with some number of SLeducators; so, I have decided to write about my findings (see category: usability) and post a forum thread here at RezEd to stir things up a bit.

Maybe you know of research into usability in VWs. Where can I look? Have you seen a checklist for content creation? What works, and what does not?

I hope you will keep this thread in mind next time you stumble over a flawed design, or find an example of efficiency that is worth mention.

Cheers

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

some stuff i found on usability in VW:
*a business approach: http://www.slideshare.net/markus.breuer/usability-in-virtual-worlds...
*an interesting research: http://www.projectchainsaw.com/blog/2009/01/improving-the-usability...
*some basic discussion for starters: http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0801-Fun.htm
*continue the discussion with Bartle's "Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies[...] ": http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041103/bartle_pfv.htm
*a blog with lots of interesting sessions and resources (look under sessions, right side of screen: http://www.oz-ia.org/2007/program/sessions/user-research-in-virtual...)
*a research dealing with different types of design principles (but some good nuggets on user mapping for assessment of current sim architecture): http://vw.indiana.edu/building-blocks/report.pdf
*some reading "the social role of virtual architecture": http://web.media.mit.edu/~dietmar/papers/FunctionFollowsForm.pdf
*what is user-centered design: http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/about_usability/what_is_...
*research-based user-centered design and evaluation of virtual environments: http://people.cs.vt.edu/~jgabbard/publications/cga99.pdf
*consideration in designing instructional virtual environments: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_0...
*learning Space design: http://www.educause.edu/ELI/LearningPrinciplesandPractices/Learning...,
*Dr. Lisa Dawley's research on Persistent Social Learning: An Emergent ID Model for Virtual World Design: https://admin.na3.acrobat.com/_a768376479/p17101188/

I have to admit that most results dealt with a general island design. I did not find anything that dealt with a building design specifically, although some results did yield some principles that can also apply to buildings.

btw: really cool site you have here: http://instructionalalchemy.com/blog/
S.

[Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin]

I just remembered something while reading your post again. A sim that particularly impressed me was the testi tour. A few years after I went through the tour, i still remember most of the tour and can use what I learned in that ONE tour to explain the development of sperm. In fact, I am more and more impressed with that tour as time goes by, considering that I really took this tour only once and it was when it had just opened (at least 2 years ago).
Looking at this sim, now, with the instructional design issue in mind, I realize that it follows a few rules. Granted, the sim is a guided tour (as in 'sit and be guided') of a scripted simulation (as in 'animation in a loop') with some interactivity integrated into it (as in 'now please click here and there'). So i realize that this sim belongs more to a category of course/activity design (instructional design) than an open space/building design (virtual architecture). But my question is: is it possible to take what was successful in that guided tour and apply it to a building design? It seems as though it is successful when applied to island organization (reference to Dr. Dawley's research on user permanence and visit patterns on site): nodes, signs, connecting streets/buildings...

[Frederic Emam-Zade aka Zage Farman in SL]

As before, I still continue devoting some time to creating stuff inworld that can be used asynchronously by ppl to learn without having to move around to much. A new version is my 3D model of the flows within a basic economy.

The pipes have a flow animation inside and clicking them or any of the market agents (objects) sends you directly to that term in wikipedia.

You can see it in the South East SE corner of Ontos Island on the top platform (60 meters high). FREE copies for educational purposes are available if requested to Zage Farman in SL.

[Scott Merrick]

Wonderful! We at the ISTE SIGVE (Virtual Environments) are working toward just this kind of research and sharing. I'm linking to here from http://sigve.iste.wikispaces.net and hoping that helps your project along.