A chat with Benjamin Linden: LL and Big Spaceship collaborate on user-experience, page 2

Outcomes for all

The Lab is confident that this project will provide beneficial outcomes for both current users and potential users of Second Life, particularly with many of the flow-on benefits that improved user-retention might bring, 'Lower barriers to entry should result in a larger, more active and diverse user base, which has social and economic benefits for the entire Resident community. We anticipate this project will benefit many different Resident communities, making it easier to bring friends and event participants in-world, expanding the Second Life economy, and generally making in-world exploration and creative efforts easier for all.'

That brings us squarely onto the issue of new users, Second Life's rather low retention rate, and the difficulties of finding relevant and interesting content. 'We want to streamline new users' introduction to Second Life and make their initial in-world experiences intuitive, compelling, and delightful,' Ben told us.

'We'll do this by providing better up-front education and context-setting about what users can expect in Second Life, simplifying the Viewer interface, and enabling users to quickly find and connect with content and communities most meaningful to their unique interests and desires.'

Collaboration with Big Spaceship

Big Spaceship does quality work, there's no doubt about it. Certainly their showcase Web-sites are a bit heavy on the Flash and Javascript, but that doesn't represent the whole body of their work. Working through their back-catalogue Big Spaceship is obviously adept at cleaving to a theme, and staying focused.

We did wonder, though, if the move of Matthew Rosenberg from Organic (Mark Kingdon's old stomping grounds) to Big Spaceship had an impact on the decision to join forces with the media agency. Ben told us no, 'As it happens, this was coincidental. Big Spaceship competed against several other design agencies in a rigorous selection process and they were chosen on the merits of their proposal.'

So, how exactly did Big Spaceship wind up on the Lab's radar?

'We reached out to Big Spaceship based on recommendations from one of their larger clients,' Ben informed us, 'Big Spaceship presented a unique blend of capabilities (user experience strategy, interface and visual design, web development) and experience, having designed numerous online experiences that are engaging and approachable. We were highly impressed with Big Spaceship's user-centered approach to analyzing and designing solutions for the Second Life user experience.'

Obviously a cursory inspection of Big Spaceship's work doesn't seem to commend them as an ideal fit, but then, much of their visible portfolio is Web-centric. There's more under that shiny surface than meets the eye, however, and they do have some first-hand knowledge and expertise. 'Many members of the Big Spaceship design team are long-time Second Life Residents, some having been in-world since 2003. The team also has deep expertise in online communities and social computing.'

'This project is being handled through Big Spaceship's strategic practice, which is platform- and technology-agnostic – their focus is on determining the best possible experience, then figuring out how to implement it.'

Working together

Linden Lab has run usability-testing and focus-groups. Some represents feedback from the participants of the old SL-Views program, while more recently the Lab has undertaken a schedule of focused usability evaluations at their San Francisco headquarters. We asked how that material fit together with the work that Big Spaceship was undertaking. 'Linden Lab and Big Spaceship have been collaborating closely throughout the project. We've provided the Big Spaceship team with a wealth of existing research, including the output of recent usability tests and focus groups. So they're not starting from scratch, nor are they working in a vacuum. We're also putting a plan in place to gather and respond to feedback from the Resident community throughout the course of the project.'

While in-world communications between the Lab and Big Spaceship are not left out, it is obvious to most that the platform itself does not yet lend itself to the sort of ad-hoc creativity of being able to sketch diagrams and scrawl all over white-boards, so there's a certain amount of physical travel between the offices of the two groups as well. How close is close collaboration, exactly?

'The teams are effectively functioning as extensions of each other. Big Spaceship is a great "cultural fit" with Linden Lab, both in our philosophical desire to create extraordinary experiences, and in our fun, energetic working style.'

In the past, our project implementation stopwatch (with which we time the Lab's progress from conception to release of individual projects) generally seems to run to around 14 months. Ben seems confident that this project will be well resourced and move along quite smartly, even though it is a bit early to say yet, 'The project is in a very preliminary phase, and implementation plans aren't yet finalized, though implementation will likely be handled through a combination of internal and external development resources working in close partnership.'

All in all, we're very interested to see what comes out of all of this energy and collaboration. We've been disappointed before, of course, but perhaps a fresh perspective will indeed do the trick. Big Spaceship has a record of success in their ventures, and great success for the majority.

All things considered, we're cautiously optimistic about the possible outcomes. While completion might be a year or so away, we're looking forward to Linden Lab keeping the users involved and informed about the ongoing progress of the UX project.