What is Accessibility?

Accessibility, as it pertains to computers, deals with the accessibility/usability of a computer system (hardware, software, etc.) for any person, regardless of disability.

Most of the time, when people here the term “disability”, they tend to think of those who are deaf or blind, but disability is far more wide-ranging that that, and includes other visual and auditory disabilities like color blindness, low-vision, and complete or partial-blindness, being hard of hearing or completely deaf. The term also encompasses cognitive impairments that can include things like Autism, Dyslexia, and ADHD. Finally, disability can also include motor or dexterity impairments like Cerebral Palsy or Repetitive Strain Injury.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 17% of the U.S. population, aged 16 and over, lives with some form of disability.

Personal Experiences

Accessibility is a subject near and dear to me for a couple of reasons. In previous jobs, I’ve spent time as an accessibility consultant, helping companies and government agencies develop and maintain accessible websites.

Secondly, and most importantly, is my husband. After suffering a serious back injury during a military training exercise over a year and a half ago, my husband now walks only with a cane and even then, experiences tremendous pain. These days, he is mostly confined to our home and, like so many other people living with a disability, has come to rely on  computers and the Internet for many daily activities - personal or work-related.

An Accessible Second Life?

There were several meeting attendees participating in the discussion about Accessibility who questioned the value of introducing more accessible content both in the Viewer and on the grid. That’s a pretty ignorant view. After all, ignoring the accessibility community means ignoring almost one fifth of the U.S. population alone. Second Life is available globally, so consider the large percentage of the world’s population we ignore when we ignore accessibility concerns.

So over the past few weeks, I’ve spent time seeking out and talking to members of various disability and accessibility groups in Second Life. They are an incredibly bright and talented group who are continually pushing the limits of LSL and building in Second Life to provide great experiences for disabled SL users.

Government Mandates

Many web developers will remember the flurry of web activity and discussion that swirled around Section 508 of the Disabilities Act. This legal document required that all government agencies have websites that are accessible to all people, regardless of disability.

So this got me thinking. What do rulings like this mean for the future of Second Life? There are many government agencies setting up shop in SL today. As the virtual world becomes ever more prevalent, will new laws have to be written requiring government agencies to provide accessible virtual content?

Many questions have come to mind and I continue to think about them now:

• Can accessibility mandates be successfully applied to virtual worlds? How can it be employed on a global scale? Is it even possible?
• Is it possible to introduce standards to building and scripting in SL? Will this limit creativity?
• Can we introduce more accessibility controls and event responders to help disabled users navigate?

I plan to continue seeking out accessible tools and content in Second Life and will cover them here in future posts!

What is your view on accessibility and Second Life? How can we create a more accessible metaverse?

A long-standing SL Resident, Phoenix Psaltery, went into complete renal failure a few days ago.

Here is the message that was passed along by Crap Mariner through the SL Bloggers group:

Just a few days ago, Phoenix went into complete renal failure and has ended up in intensive care at a hospital away from his home town, with a shunt for dialysis. Unfortunately, there are other complications as well, including pneumonia.  Finances have gotten dire for them as Sans has to stay at a hotel while he’s in ICU, not to mention other expenses that are incurred and with children left at home in the care of relatives.

So their SL friends have joined together to help them! We are putting on an all day auction and live DJ event. Many people have donated items such as transferable Dazzle dresses, and merchants such as myself have made limited editions for sale at this auction only.

The event starts Saturday August 23 at 10AM SLT, with a fabulous DJ line up:

• Cylindrian Rutabaga performing live 9-10 AM
• 10 AM till Noon Siggy Romulus
• Noon till 2 PM aEoLuS Waves
• 2 PM till 4 PM Esma/Io
• 4 PM till 6 PM Lucifer Baphomet
• 6 PM till 8 PM Lecktor Hannibal
• 8 PM till 10 PM Vivianne Draper
• 10 pm till Midnight Augustus Bainbridge

And here’s a sampling of the items up for auction:

• Limited Edition Purple Latex Kimono by Zorena Deckard (Ookami Ningen)
• RL original oil painting by Jen (from Jen) SL name Schechinah Enoch (title: Currents Oil on Canvas 2004 20″x24″) Free shipping is included if it gets a price of $250USD or more.
  This is a minimum so the auction should start at that price for this item.
  The pic can be seen here: http://secondsurvivor.com/SecondSurv…&postcount=111
• 1k gift card to Blaze (from Susanne Pascale)
• 2 years of ad rotation in SLTrivia (from FlipperPA Peregrine)
• 1/2 black & white page ad in special print SLCC edition (worth $467 USD) (from Katt Kongo)
• Metric ton of clothing from Dazzle and Last Call (from various donators)
• Original one of a kind outfit from A2NZ “P2″ Rubber cloak
• A lot of stuff from Aeolous’ store. I have never been to his store so I’m not sure what that is but whatever it is the auction gets five of everything.
• Limited release outfit from 2006 from Pixel Dolls (donated by a buyer not Neph)
• Fat pack of Full line of Elegance hats (from Morrigan)
• Full set Fat Little Sofa, Fat Little Chair, and Fat Little Ottoman from Relic
• Not yet released AMBIANCE Henna Collection Living Room Set by Desiree
• ‘Very Large Domed Tent - Brown- Gypsy Tent from Osprey Therian
• ‘Very Large Domed Tent - Buff - Gypsy Tent from Osprey Therian
• ‘Very Large Domed Tent - Purple - Gypsy Tent from Osprey Therian
• ‘Giant Potato on flatcar with sign’ by Osprey Therian

I urge all my readers to take part in this event and donate whatever you can. Let’s continue to show what a tremendously supportive and caring community where have in Second Life. I’ll see you there.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/William/206/220/22/

I’ve also had requests for several other types of cheatsheets and quickstart guides in the areas of LSL, getting started in SL, building 101, machima, avatar customization, and the list goes on. I love these ideas, so consider me on it! Expect more cheatsheet-style resources for Second Life in the coming weeks and months!

So now I’m going to reach out to you guys for some help. First thing is…

Translations!

The cheatsheets and quickstart guides will only be useful to you if you can read them. So I’m looking for volunteers to help me get the next version of the Viewer cheatsheet translated. If you are interested, please add a comment to this post or email me at cheatsheet <at> kippiefriedkin <dot> com. In your email or comment, please include your SL name or email address (any way I can contact you) and the language you can provide translation for! The more languages we can support, the better.

So thanks again for your support and enthusiasm, stay tuned for more updates and resources to help make Second Life a better (and easier) place to live and play!

What is a Plurkshop?

It’s a workshop that is held using the micro-blogging/social networking community, Plurk. Plurk is like Twitter, except that it is more conversational (and less broken). The Plurkshop is basically a threaded discussion on Plurk about a specific topic.

Event Details

Plurkshop #11: Second Life® - The Value of Immersive Experience
Time: 10pm EST/ 7pm PST

To join us get a Plurk account, then add plurkshop as a friend. Watch plurkshop’s updates for the thread to kick off and then jump on in!

I’m looking forward to some great discussion!

Final Presenter - Rheta Shan

Like most of the finalists, Rheta’s design concepts went beyond just making the Viewer simpler for new Residents. Instead, like other entrants of the contest, Rheta wanted to show how to improve the Viewer for all Residents - easy for new users, but powerful and flexible for seasoned Residents.

Rheta noted that it is not the graphical design of the Viewer that is the main problem, rather it’s lack of logic and ease of access. She further pointed that the current Viewer seems more like a mixture of game and chat ui concepts bundled together. Therefore, Rheta’s entry became an entire UI overhaul demonstrating her efforts towards a logical reorganization of the Viewer, making it a true “window into a world.”

The first area of the Viewer she discussed was a navigation bar at the top of the Viewer, where today’s file menu bar resides. In her navigation bar, she bundles location, navigation, movement, and access to areas a Resident visits frequently. Her design makes it easy to tell if you are flying/walking and improves upon today’s Viewer’s location information, but making it an interactive navigation bar. Kudos for that. Rheta also includes navigation history here. When typing the name of a place you wish to visit into the bar, it begins searching places you have visited before, as well as places you have landmarked. I liked Jacek’s comment that it could be the “SLawesome bar.”

I thought her ideas to include buttons on the top bar for adding a landmarks, accessing all Landmarks you have created, and teleporting home were also very useful. I didn’t see a lot of mention of Search and noticed it was not included in the top bar, so I’m wondering if that is included in her nav bar idea, but I’m not sure as of this writing.

Next, Rheta discussed the grouping of items in the bottom bar of her redesigned Viewer. LIke other entrants, she has regrouped buttons, bundling like functions together. First at the left-most corner of the Viewer are chat tools, including text chat, voice, and IM. Next to this, she includes an inbox icon which is where notifications and offline IMs would be held. I liked this idea because it tells you how many messages you have waiting in your inbox.  This feature was received very well by those who attended the presentation, as well as the judges panel.

Next on the bottom bar, she includes “World browsers” and “Personal browsers” - which are groups of buttons that represent Search functions and Inventory types, respectively. I do like how Rheta has combined some of the search items together, however, I’m not sure I agreed with giving each a button on the bottom bar. I would rather have one button that pops open the Search (like it does today) and eliminate some clutter on the bottom bar. Last in the bottom button bar are building tools, preferences, and help. Nicely organized and I think it’s of definite benefit to include an easy to spot help button in the Viewer.

Perhaps the only entrant to address contextual menus in the Viewer, Rheta has redesigned the context meny pie menu that appears when you right click on objects, property, and people in SL. She notes, and I completely agree, that the pie menus are a pain to use. Rheta instead introduces the idea of “Inspector Panels”. I love, love, love the ideas she presents here, and I would encourage you to read her full description in her entry PDF. I’ll just include the screenshots here so you can drool along with me.

Another great idea presented by Rheta was the idea of a Picture workbench. Here you can manage how you create movies and take pictures. She includes the ability to crop and resize a photo before you save it, including useful photo aspect ratio options as well. This rules. Rheta also discussed how her workbench concepts would carry over to Prim workbench and appearance workbench. She did include mockups of these items, but I’d love to see them in a future iteration of this design concept.

The last area Rheta covered in her presentation was in improving camera control. In her design, she shows how to make some less than intuitive functions of camera movement into an easy to use interface. She takes all the available camera controls and includes them together, as well as including feedback about your current camera position. I don’t shoot a lot of video in SL currently, because it more often than not crashes my Viewer. But it’s easy to see how Rheta’s concept would work and improve video recording in SL. A great job here.

As with all finalists, Rheta’s presentation was very well received by all in attendance. The panel asked a few questions about functionality and the relocation of certain items (like your L$ balance). Overall, Rheta’s design concepts gave us things to dream we could integrate into the browser tomorrow.

So that wraps up all the finalists presentations. Next steps are for the judges to render their decisions. I’m eagerly awaiting the verdict and would like to update my own vote as a four-way tie between McCabe, Jacek, Damien, and Rheta. Super Viewer, here we come!

You can check out Rheta Shan’s full entry here.

With most applications I use, I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts because it saves time and it makes you look cool in front of your friends (kidding about that too). Keyboard shortcuts are definitely convenient though and provide access to often hidden functionality in an application normally reserved for power users only.

So my gift to you, fellow Second Life® Residents, is version 1.0 of my new project, a Second Life® Viewer Cheatsheet. It contains all the keyboard shortcuts of which I am currently aware.

Download the Second Life® Viewer cheatsheet - version 1.0 (PDF)

Please use and enjoy! If you find any errors, know of keyboard shortcuts I haven’t included, or have suggestions on how to make this resource better, please let me know!

• Design an interface for the Second Life client that would improve the experience of a new or inexperienced user.
• Nothing should be added that is not possible in the current Viewer. (Basically, present the current features in a new way).

Last night, each of five finalists presented their concepts to a panel of judges and then participated in a Q&A session. (I should note that Rheta Shan was unable to attend, so she will be presenting to judges in a separate session later this week). The presentation had an impressive turnout, with just under 30 Residents in attendance. What follow is a summary of each presentation and my thoughts about each one.

Presenter #1 - McCabe Maxstead

McCabe discussed how the main goal of his design was the maximize screen space, allowing Residents as best a view of the 3D world as possible. So in his designs, he’s using the edges and corners of the screen as much as possible.

Rather than a horizontal alignment of buttons, McCabe instead chose a vertical alignment, noting that with so many people running widescreen displays now, vertical real estate is at a premium. So by stacking buttons and UI components vertically, he can afford large menu bars that run horizontally and further shrink your view of the world.

McCabe said he sought to make the new user experience less overwhelming by making his design very modular and that each element designed would appear in sequence. So as a new Resident begins to interact in Second Life®, UI elements would be made available gradually. First, displaying the chat bar, and the left drawer with a singl eicon. Each of the icons on the left bar of McCabe’s design is meant to represent skills that Residents, both new and old, need to master.

All of the communication elements in McCabe’s design have been grouped and moved to the lower left of the Viewer.

I won’t go over every detail of McCabe’s presentation, as I think his design speaks for itself. But overall, I liked McCabe’s entry. My favorite enhancement he presented was the reworked Build floater (shown in the above screenshot as the ‘Prim Edit’ floater). Though the floater itself seems to take up more space which could be frustrating when working on a large build, I do like the organization of the floater. The icons that display the differences between position, rotation, and size are also quite nice and would be an asset to new builders, but I think they could be reduced in size so as not to require so much real estate in the floater. McCabe describes another great feature introduced by his “Prim Editing” enhancements:

“All prims can be profile cut, with profile cuts being renamed to “Slice” for boxes. The button next to the begin/end spinners is a cornering button. Clicking any one of the corners will chop 1/4th out of a prim for that particular cut, allowing for quick halving and quartering without remembering the default numbers (a pain for even experienced users).”

Overall, I think McCabe’s ideas are a good baseline for some much needed UI modifications. By allowing for more screen real estate, and surfaving items like an easily accessible “Worn” tab that allow you to see what you’re wearing make his entry a very worthy contender.

The panel of judeges mostly asked questions about the communications tools and how his design affords more screen real estate. As McCabe’s entry was very much a wireframe UI approach, I’d be interested to see it skinned to get a better idea of the size of the design elements proposed.

You can check out McCabe Maxstead’s full entry here.

Presenter #2 - Jacek Antonelli

I won’t go into as much detail about Jacek’s presentation, as I covered it in a post several days ago. However, I will say that Jacek’s entry was very well received by the panel and the Residents in attendance.

In her presentation, Jacek noted that her design ideas have also been receiving some very positive feedback, which includes some nods from the Lindens. So Dusan and finalists take note, the Lindens are listening!

As she did at least week’s UX office hour, Jacek stressed that part of the strength of her design is the feasibility of its implementation. As someone who is familiar with the Viewer codebase, Jacek went to great lengths to ensure that each UI enhancement she included was something that is achieveable today.

Jacek’s entry features a customizable toolbar on the bottom right of the Viewer. This toolbar would include functions that a new Resident would need as their begin their second life. It is them customizable, so that older Residents can include the tools for which they wish to have quick access. A nice feature, but I wonder what the best way would be to educate new Residents about the features that are not included in the toolbar; the build tools, as an example. Just as is necessary today, a significant amount of education would be required to teach newer Residents about the hidden features of the Viewer.

Like McCabe Maxstead’s design, Jacek’s entry includes a grouping of all the communication tools available to Residents. In Jacek’s design, it’s referred to as the social corner. A nice touch is that she has proposed a cleaner IM notification pop-up which would tell you how many IMs you had waiting.

My favorite part of Jacek’s design is the reworked Inventory floater. For those of us with out-of-control inventories, her ideas gave me hope that I could tame that wild beast! In addition to surfacing the assetΩ quick filter in a nice way, she’s also included tabs/shortcuts for items currently worn, as well as favorites. Jacek noted that by right-clicking on any inventory item or folder, it could be designated a favorite, which would then be accessible via the Favorites tab.

The panel asked questions about the IM notifications, asking if they would tell you who was IM’ing you, and Jacek and a few other Residents suggested that although her designs do not included it, that the notifications could display the name and then fade it after a second or two, which is a great idea.

As I said in my previous post, I really like the ideas Jacek has presented, but again, have some concerns over the size of the individual UI elements which feel like they might be intrusive (ie. the size of the “social corner”.

You can check out Jacek Antonelli’s full entry here.

Presenter #3 - Damien Fate

First, after the amazing launch of Loco Pocos a couple of weeks ago, I have no idea where Damien found the time to create this contest entry. So I applaud him for his efforts.

Damien’s design focused on three areas of the Viewer: the top menu bar, the bottom/chat bar, and the Inventory. His first enhancement - small, costmetic change, as making the mini-map a circular element instead of the square it is today. This was mainly a personal preference change, but it does make the map feel a little cleaner - more like a small radar.

In the top menu bar, Damien also introduced back and forwards buttons on either side of the location information. Clicking the drop-down buttons with these will display the places you have been to and allow a Resident to quickly teleport back to a place they have visited previously. Some members of the audience and the judging panel stated that they would prefer an intermediary “go” button of sorts instead of just clicking an item in the list and then automatically teleporting there.

Next, Damien discussed the idea of introduced a “Sell L$” option in the top menu in the form of a drop down. He stated this would make it easier for Residents to not only buy, but to sell L$ more easily. As someone who does not frequently sell Linden’s I’m not sure what the value of this feature is, especially for a newer user. But I can see it’s benefit as a quick access option for store owners and landlords. Perhaps it could be an option that could be turned on in the Viewer Preferences.

For the bottom bar of the Viewer, Damien presented ideas for three levels, each surfacing gradually more functionality. The first level, for new Residents, would include basic navigation and communication tools. The second level adds more buttons including media options. Finally, the third level would have all of the features represented in today’s Viewer, in addition to Appearance mode, View Alpha, View Scripted, View Physical, and Simulator Stats. I do like the layout of the buttons, stylistically, and the options for different levels, but I’d definitely like to be able to customize the buttons available on that third level. In addition, because the third level does occupy a lot of screen real estate, I’d like to be able to slide the buttons down, like a drawer so that I can easily get it out of the way.

Finally, in the Inventory, Damien noted that he didn’t changed the visual appearance of the Inventory, rather he introduced some new features he felt are currently lacking in todays’ Viewer. The first was a view button which allows you to filter a specific asset type in your inventory. Damien acknowledged this is a hidden sort filter in the current Viewer, and like Jacek, he chose to surface it in his design. Like the other finalists, Damien also discussed a favorites tab in the Inventory, which is always well received by Second Life® residents.

I feel like Damien’s design is very strong and again, represents some great ideas for the Viewer. I would love to see some design treatments and customization with some of the menus, but I like the direction he has chosen.

You can check out Damien Fate’s full entry here, here, and here. (Note: these are PDFs!)

Presenter #4 - Roy Cassini

Roy’s design sought to improve the current interface, not by looking at it as a flawed or bad design, but to help organize the features to better fit a Resident’s actions in Second Life®

The first design suggestion presented by Roy is a client-side tutorial that could be used to replace the troublesome Oreintation and Help Island experiences that plague new user retention today. His tutorial would progressively introduce the new user to Second Life® and the features of the Viewer’s user interface.

Next, Roy chose to represent a lot of the UI elements in panels that can be docked to the side of the Viewer and exposed as the user wishes, but presenting an initial prioritization of the panels. He also noted Resident response to Dazzle and presented a much darker interface design than any I’ve seen to date.

Also interested, and commented on by the panel was the search bar in the Viewer, which was moved to the center of the top menu (thus moving location information to the right). I have to admit that I still don’t follow the logic behind this UI decision. However, several members of the panel and the audience mentioned that they didn’t even realize that the current Viewer has a search box at the top right. Interesting, indeed.

You can view Roy Cassini’s full entry here.

Presenter #5 - Vincent Nacon

The last presenter of the night was Vincent Nacon. Vincent discussed some of his experiences with the current Viewer and dislike of some of the features introduced over the past year. One item in particular was the Communicate window. His design showed incoming IM notifications not just appearing as a single notification, but as separate notifications for each IM so you could see who it was from. I tend to agree with a few of the panel judges that this could create a lot of clutter in the interface, something I need a lot less of.

Another feature of Vincent’s design was surfacing permissions options for each item in the Inventory, so you can easily check boxes on permissions without having to look at the properties or rez the object to set it’s perms. I like this idea, and think it could be worked into a larger Inventory overhaul to help speed the work of Resident builders and designers.

Overall, I enjoyed Vincent’s presentation and felt he had some good ideas for enhancements to the Viewer, but the concepts and logic behind some of the design decisions seemed like they were still in their early stages and could use some more work. I’d be interested to see this again after a few more iterations.

You can check out Vincent Nacon’s full entry here: Design 1, Design 2, Design 3, Design 4, Design 5, Design 6, Design 7.

The Next Steps

At the close of the presentations last night, Dusan Writer said that the panel would be meeting with Rheta Shan sometime over the next few days to review her presenation and then final judging would take place thereafter.

I was very excited to hear that New World Notes would be hosting a poll for Residents to allow them to choose their favorite designs. It will be great to see what the larger SL community thinks of the contest and the ideas presented. Writer will also be highlighting the entries at Metanomics on August 4th. The designs will be reviewed on Thursday afternoon at the weekly UX office hours as well, and I encourage anyone interested to attend - it’s always a great hour of discussion.

Finally, Dusan didn’t get into much detail, but he did indicate that there would be a follow-up, “mash-up style” contest on the horizon!

Oh yeah, one last thing. My vote for the winner of this competition. So far, it’s a tie between McCabe, Jacek, and Damien. I would, however, like to review Rheta’s design a little more closely. If I had my choice, I’d take elements of all the finalist’s entries and create a super Viewer! Hmmmm…

On Wednesday, July 19, Gibson launched Gibson Island, making them the first major music manufacturer with a presence in Second Life®. I’m sad to say I missed the launch festivities, which included a live preformance by former Fleetwood Mac guitarist/singer, Bob Welch. I haven’t been able to find any video of that performance yet, but when I do, I’ll link it here.

When I first heard about the island, I was very excited to check it out, especially with the influx of incredible builds I’ve been seeing lately. The island itself it shaped like a Les Paul guitar body which looks very cool from the air.

But when I began to explore the island itself, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. The island feels cluttered and disorganized. There are lots of places to visit where you can learn more about Gibson guitars, amps, signature models, future technologies, and various Gibson sponsored musicians. After all, lots of things to see and do is important  for the success of any build. But the actual structures and layout of the island are largely unimpressive. It reminded me of an older mainland build that has become littered and in need to some design and styling. The free items available to Residents are very well built, especially the guitar freebies, but they come in garishly textured box prims which add to the cluttered feeling of the island.

Also featured throughout the island are lots of video content with exclusive audio and new information about Gibson guitar and lifestyle. With the large number of videos available, it’s easy to spend quite a bit of time on the island. I particular enjoyed the video featuring a performance by blues legend, Howlin’ Wolf.

As I mentioned above, there are about 20 or so Gibson guitars available free to Residents scattered all over the island. Models include:

Gibson’s Hound Dog Dobro, Hummingbird, SJ-200, Deluxe Songwriter, J-45, F5G mandolin, ES335 Heritage, 50th Anniversary Commemorative Explorer, Flying V, Les Paul Classic, Slash Inspired By Les Paul, John Lennon Signature Les Paul, Les Paul Robot, Les Paul Supreme, Double Cut Longhorn, SG Diablo, SG Angus Young Signature, SG Standard, and Les Paul Classic models.

The electric guitars are scripted with poses that make your avatar tap his feet and strum. The acoustic guitars have been left unscripted. But some come with stools that, when sat on, make your avatar sway and stum away. Considering there are a lot of instrument vendors who charge a considerable amount for scripted instruments in Second Life®, getting all these guitars for free is a real treat!

Taken from Gibson’s lifestyle website feature about the island, visitors can experience the following attractions at Gibson Island:

Gibson Forest: Walk the path and learn about the woods that make the extraordinary Gibson guitars recognized around the world as the premier musical instrument

Gibson Theatre: View exclusive Gibson movies 24/7 complete with soft drinks and popcorn.

Gibson Radio: The launch of the new Second Life radio station will play music from legendary Gibson artists and include live interviews and radio broadcasts

Gibson Rock and Roll Stage: Full sized concert stage for musical performances

Wurlitzer Cafe: Step back in time and experience the cafe that hosts all the latest Wurlitzer Jukebox models

Gibson Custom Guitar Shop: You want your own virtual Gibson guitar customized? Come meet Gibson’s official virtual luthier, Myriam Beck

Gibson Guitar of the Month Boardwalk: Showcasing each 2008 monthly axe release virtually

Gibson Gear Stores: Second Life visitors can view Gibson branded products, gear, apparel, furniture and much more that are available

Gibson Labs: Here is where Second Life visitors can pick up their free Holographic Personal Video Movie screen and watch educational and entertaining Gibson videos.

The J200 Building: Gibson Acoustic instruments will be given away inside this Gibson J200 Shaped building on the island

The Gibson Amplifier Building: In honor of Gibson Amps, virtual Gibson amp models will be available here

The Mandolin Building: Shaped like the famous Gibson Mandolin, Second Life visitors can climb a rope to the lookout tower at the base of the headstock or go inside for a virtual free Gibson F5 Mandolin

Gibson has announced they will feature a series of concerts on the island over the next couple of months, but I haven’t seen a schedule yet. So I’m eager to hear who might be performing this summer.

While I’m somewhat critical of the overall design of the island, there’s a lot of see and discover at Gibson Island. If you’re a music fan, or a guitar buff, then this is probably a place you’ll want to check out!

Flickr Set: http://flickr.com/photos/kidmarmite/sets/72157605995664230/
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gibson%20Island/79/53/48/

It could be considered very timely that Second Life Resident, Dusan Writer, launched a UI redesign contest in recent weeks. The contest’s main goal (and criteria for judgement) is to redesign the Viewer to make it simpler for new Residents to use. The prize? L$800,000 to the winning Resident. Note: At the time of this writing, finalists have already been announced. (I would have loved to have entered my designs to this contest, but my workload prevents it. Boo. Next time, Lindens. Next time!)

You can check out the very creative and thoughtful contest entries here.

Today, I’m going to cover an entry from contest finalist, Jacek Antonelli, who presented her designs during Ben Linden’s UX office hour yesterday afternoon.

Antonelli discussed her approach and design rationale with a captive audience who definitely expressed great enthusiasm over her UI modification ideas. She explained that she wanted to achieve four (4) things with her designs:

1. To introduce UI revisions that represent “low-effort changes that yield significant benefits.”
2. Revisions that are feasible to implement without requiring long time commitments and large teams.
3. To make the UI better for all Residents - not just focusing on new users. (This certainly pleased meeting attendees who are largely very experienced SL users)
4. Not to tear the current UI apart and start from scratch.

Jacek’s UI featured menu re-organization, reducing existing UI clutter with fewer buttons on-screen, and grouping UI elements according to function.

I’m not sure how I feel about the design and size of the buttons UI elements in the design, but I think these are simply representations at this point. Jacek also indicated that it would be useful if Residents had the ability to resize buttons and UI elements to suit these needs/tastes. Also, while Jacek’s design showed menu items in specific groups, she also indicated her design concept would allow for Residents to customize buttons and groupings, saying, “I’d really like to see a system where you can drag any item from the menu to make an equivalent button.” Awesome idea.

One of the standout features introduced in her design was a “social corner” - a grouping of UI elements that revolve around a user’s social activities in Second Life - Text and voice chat, and the friend’s list. It also included a clean notification system that would take the place of the existing “IM Received” button that appears when a message comes in. Instead, her design shows a clean flyout which would notify the user of incoming messages and indicate the number of messages/IMs waiting.

Finally, Jacek introduced her concepts for a re-organized Inventory. The first thing I noticed was the surfacing of the filters by Inventory item type as a Quick View (which are present in today’s Viewer, though hidden and confusing to use - File > Show Filters) on the main Inventory window view. This makes it easier to look at specific asset types without having to muddle through the entire Inventory to find what you want.

The context menus (right-click) include options that allow you to mark an Inventory item as a “Favorite”. Doing this places them into a new Favorites tab in the Inventory. I really, really, really like this idea! It would make it easier to find those items that you use all the time (be they outfits, scripts, objects, etc.). Jacek also noted that you could mark an entire folder as a favorite which would place it and it’s entire contents into the Favorites tab. Favorite items would also be denoted by a subtle color shift to make them more noticeable in the regular Inventory view.

The context menu also featured two filtering/search items - “Search this name” which takes the asset’s name and places it into the search bar at the top of the Inventory floater. This wold allow you to quickly find duplicates or items with a similar name. I can see this as being very useful when you accidentally move parts of an outfit into different folders and then can’t find all the pieces anymore.  The other menu item discussed was “Filter this type”, which would take the asset type and apply it in the Quick Filter menu, allowing you to view assets of the selected type only.

Finally, the asset context menu featured one other very useful item - the Send To menu. This feature allows you to move assets in your Inventory around without having to drag and drop or open lots of windows to get organized. The ‘Send To” feature lets you select a folder in your Inventory, and also displays quick access to recently used folders.

You can check out Jacek’s full contest entry here. If you’re interested in learning more about the contest and the finalists’ submissions, the final UI designs will be presented by the contestants on July 22 at 2pm SLT.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Remedy/82/163/24

Well, men and women of the metaverse…rejoice! Through friends on Plurk this week, I learned about a new line of shoes for women (and one pair of sandals for the men) that feature prim toes! How do they look you ask?

They look fantastic! Available at J’s, there are several different pairs of open-toed shoes to choose from. And, as mentioned above, there’s a pair of sandals available for men.

Even better - the shoes are fully scripted allowing the owner to change the color of the toes to match their skin. You can also change the tone and color of the toenails. The women’s shoes even have the option to show or hide a toe ring! Nice touch!

This is a great line of shoes and I look forward to seeing what comes next from this designer. My only complaint so far is that the shoes are one size only. So I’d like to see other sizes available to accommodate taller avs. Other than that, I give these an overwhelming positive two thumbs up!

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/TSUKISHIMA/207/232/22/