Difference between revisions of "Voice Test Team"

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''This page is to be edited and kept up to date by the Voice Test Team currently staffing Orientation Island 15.''
''This page is to be edited and kept up to date by the Voice Test Team currently staffing Orientation Island 15.''
*Please post all of your efforts, observations, ideas and strategies for improving retention and use of Voice
*Please post all of your efforts, observations, ideas and strategies for improving retention and use of Voice
*[http://s3.amazonaws.com/kurz-linden/Voice_Volunteer_Kickoff_Meeting_Agenda.doc Link to Volunteer Kickoff Meeting Agenda]
*[http://s3.amazonaws.com/kurz-linden/Voice_Volunteer_Kickoff_Meeting_Agenda.doc Link to Volunteer Kickoff Meeting Agenda]
*[http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=25bJ0Hu_2bhI0KWLCaede4Pg_3d_3d Please take the post-test wrap-up survey by clicking here - THANKS!]


== Voice Test Team Stats==
== Voice Test Team Stats==
TO BE ADDED AFTER WEEK 1
[[Voice Test Stats]]


==Diary==
==Diary==
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SAMPLE: I greeted residents by singing a song. -- Kurz Linden, Monday, July 16, 2007, noon-5pm
SAMPLE: I greeted residents by singing a song. -- Kurz Linden, Monday, July 16, 2007, noon-5pm


July 18, 2007 (Phree2Be Foxley): I guess I'm the ginnie pig.  Clocked in from 4pm to about 1130pm.  OI was really quiet.  I only really helped one person, but the experience of helping with voice was worth it.  It was really odd at first speaking instead of typing.  Usually we get to think about what we say as we type and try to get just primary information out there to get new residents going.  I had a 20 minute conversation with this guy that would have taken me hours to type.  No more click here...did you get that...click there...did you get that...what....no...ok one more time...etc, you know the drill.  Now it is practically instantaneous.  Once you get voice enabled.  Most of the folks at my time were spanish speaking and either did not understand me (or my babbler), or did not need the help.  Anyway that's it until tomorrow.  Good night.
Sucess with a few more residents using the Voice Features --Taylaa Williamson, Thursday, Aug 2, 2007. I just wanted to say how pleased I was today to find a lot more new residents using the voice features.  There were a few problems with language communications but besides that barrier, few more residents decided to utilize it.  The only issue that is bothering me is when they land in the center of the landing area, most of them wants to know, "What do we do here", How do I change my apperance", "How do I fly".  *Sigh*  Back in SL Cave dwelling days, Orientation island was more functional.  When new residents would first land, they were forced to stop and "Read" the tutorials, so by the time when most of them would reach the mainland, they would have known most of the basic skills needed to survive on the new land (because back then, as we know, there weren't any help islands).  Plus, on occassions when I would visit the old orientation islands, I would observe new residents helping each other.  Please bring back the old way or move the landing area to the top of the castle in the appearance area (or else where) so that when they first land in the game, they will be forced to learn how to make changes to their avatars or learn a few of the basic skills.  Thank you..  Tay


19 JUL 2007 (Savannah Glimmer)5:30 AM - Noon:  I gave each person who landed an initial "Welcome to SL", then offered assistance enabling voice. Most of them went right to work on the tutorials and a few of them came back later for help. People who spoke English were more apt to get voice enabled (since they were being asked to do so in English).  Others resorted to text chat. I realize the importance of having bilingual mentors using voice, however it would be difficult to cover every language around the clock. Still, with use of translators, and text chat, having mentors available still seemed to make a difference. The most frequently asked question involved earning L's or seeking employment.  For those who did use voice, I agree with Phree, that helping them was very easy. Assisting them involved conversation vs. instruction and we covered many topics, whereas they normally would ask one question then be on their way.  Some people arrived without the right equipment (no headset), or did not download the voice client. More tomorrow.
Yummie Olsen, Monday, August 13, 2007. It has been a wonderful experience helping new people get acquainted with Second Life through voice. The voice did help with teaching new people and to welcome them into Second Life. I think the voice made it more personal, that we were humans at the welcome area and it was easier to talk a lot of them through directions. I liked to welcome people in individually by their names and talk to everyone as they enter. Some of the times I had directions for everyone, that I did copy out of a notecard that Tay, Dirk and I made. Other times I went into the areas like the move area and talked them through where to go in that area and what to do for the tutorials. I walked a few through the tutorials, and helped them realize what they needed to be doing. It seemed that the tutorials were a bit long in time to accomplish for new people entering into second life but yet taught some important things along the way. I did run into still people who did not have their tutorials on when they arrived, I wound up talking many through how to get it attached. Once they got it on they were set and ready to go. It was neat to see the avatars jumping when they accomplished something, gave me a good feeling that I did help them and knew they were doing the tutorials. It was great working with everyone in the volunteer group, and along the way I met some great people. I enjoyed being a part of the group a real lot. It was nice meeting everyone, the volunteer members, the new residents, and the Lindens that ran it and were a part of it. Thank you very much for letting me be a part of a great group of people. Yummie Olsen


'''DoteDote Edison:''' I was generally online during the overnight hours for SL.  Therefore, the majority of new residents didn't speak English natively.  For those without voice, I first tried using text translations, but that became very tiresome after a few days.  For those with voice, the majority didn't have a mic or chose not to speak.  However, this is where I made progress.  Most non-english speakers were able to understand slow-talk English... at least enough to understand what was happening.  The added bonus was that other non-voice residents would see the one-sided conversation, and decide to enable voice themselves.


July 19, 2007 (ScubaChris Wollongong) noon- to 3:30: My experience has been similar. Several of the citizens I worked with had signed up a while ago and not been in until today. They did not know about the Voice but were interested.  It might be useful to add something to the sign about needing the First Look client and where to go to get it as two folks were interested. I IM'd them the URL but it would have been easier to point to the sign.   
When voice was pre-enabled, I noticed many people rez and walk around with the dot... but if I said hello via voice, they would stop and disable.  For those who stuck with voice, it was really great to actually speak to people rather than type to them... though I'd say less than 30% actually chose to communicate via voice.  With these folks, I was certainly able to convey more information than I had previously via chat.  I was able to go in-depth with things, and explain more complexities about SL (to those who were interested), without worry about confusing others in the area (for example a few people had 3D design experience and I could talk sculpties with them). Other folks were just happy to get voice working, then wanted to go off and explore the Island on their own. So, it was a mixed bag for me.  All in all, it was way easier for me to help others when they had voice enabled, and those folks were certainly eager and excited about exploring the rest of SL... but there were still many who just seemed lost and unresponsive most of the time (likely language barrier).
The one person who did have voice who needed help thought that the voice was pretty cool. We talked quite more about Second Life in general and what you can do than I've been able to in the past.  For example, it was much easier to help them with Search.  Instead of typing in chat "Open search->Places->and then type something like clubs or dancing" I was able to ask them what they were interested in and then we did some searches together (Some librarian is going to have a field day with search strategies in SL).
The other thing that helped is I created gesture made up of chats that did an introductory "Welcome to the Voice enabled Orientation Island. You first need to enable chat..." that saves me having to type that for every new person.  If anyone would like the gesture, IM me and I'll send it to you. I'm going to do one that goes through the directions latter.


July 20, 2007 (ScubaChris)- on creating an account - I'm putting together some directions for a workshop I'm doing next week and just a quick observation (request?)for the account create page. on https://secure-web11.secondlife.com/voicebeta/index.php where you select your name, the Voice page is missing the "Check this name for availability" link.  It's not a biggy but I have found this link to be very helpful for reducing the time (and sometimes frustration) of picking a name (What do you mean that Gobbledygook Watanabe is already taken! How could that be?) I assume it will return when voice is the standard download but it would be nice to add here if not too much trouble.
Finally, after three weeks on that OI Island, I feel the need to state the most obvious roadblocks I saw.  First, people think the OI is Help Island.  And that large sign "Visit Help Island" doesn't help.  For the residents who thought they were already on Help Island, the sign was ignored... for those who didn't want any help and only wanted to see the rest of SL... the sign was ignored... The only time the sign worked was when someone clicked it, and the others read the chat spam.  People would then click in droves just to go elsewhere.  The second problem is with the tutorial HUD.  Unfortunately, there aren't enough language options.  If the majority of residents are Europeans, seems Spanish or German would be good additions.  Also, with the HUD, there is no way to go back and choose a different language.  There were 3-5 people I spoke with who had accidentally clicked on the HUD when it was blurry, and they were stuck with Japanese characters (one person thought it was alien text and part of the "game"). '''--DoteDote Edison, 8/13/2007'''


July 17-21 (Master Quatro) Have seen many non-english speaking citizens who had a difficult time communicating. Perhaps separate portals for different nationalities would make their new experience more enjoyable. I'm sure the frustration of being overwhelmed with the new environment is multiplied when they can't communicate in their native language. I had one new subscriber that I chatted with that had turned on voice. He was Polish and the language barrier as well as his constant crashing prevented any meaningful help. The attempt was not successful. Most are too overwhelmed by the new world and most simply concentrated on getting dressed. I handed out lots of freebie clothes since this was a concern for them. The early morning hours (US) are rather calm. We get a few subcribers trickling in and in awe of it all.
'''Final Entry for the voice test on Orentation Island 15. -- Taylaa Williamson, Tuesday August 14, 2007.''' 
The Voice Test Project was a really good idea and I think a lot of the data collected (once the new residents were faced with the enabling tutorial) was a sucess. However, there was an issue with the language barrier. I would direct  people who wanted to enable the voice feature to please read the directions on the black board. I would use my translaor to direct those who didnt speak English, but those who couldn't speak English couldnt read it. lol  Making it hard to explain; which was a pain. lol  Also, I talked to many who didn't like the idea of using the voice feature because it was bringing too much or real life into the game, as I was told.  And, lets not bring up the Deaf Community. ehehhehe


July 21, 2007 (Phree2Be Foxley):  Helped out Savannah this morning and into the afternoon.  Together with Dirk, we came up with a little script to wear that gives some basics on the issues the OI is having.  The following phrases are repeated every 3 minutes within the wearer's chat range:
When those who did have thier voice feature enabled heard me speak to them in voice, the non English speaking residents couldn't understand me and of course I had no clue what they were saying.  But, I would still say, "Congratulations on enabling your voice feature and if you need any help, please let me know". hehehehe  I knew they had no idea what I was saying but I tried to say that to everyone, I like to make everyone feel welcome :)


Welcome: Hello All Welcome to Second Life
In conclusion, my entire voice test experience was great.  I met a lot of new people and had a chance to have some very nice conversttions with people all over the world.  I'm personally in-love with this feature because I have really bad hands and my typing is limited at times because of the pain, so this feature is a god sent for me. On the shifts I did work, I would estimate about 10% of the new residents had thir voice enabled, or would enable it after I instructed them how to do it. So, my vote for the voice feature is 2 Thums Up! lol  BTW, what is this feature going to cost us monthly? lol One last thing..  '''PLEASE BRING BACK THE FUNCTIONAL ORIENTATION ISLAND!! *Deperate Plea* heheehhehe :D  Taylaa Williamson signing out.  :P'''
 
Welcome: To Activate Voice Chat, find the black sign in the center of the island.  If you need further help a helper will be glad to help you.
 
Welcome: Your task here today is to complete the Orientation Guide.  If you do not see it in the upper left hand corner of the screen, please ask a helper for assistance.
 
Welcome: If you have finished the tutorials and you wish to leave the island, click the Help Island sign for a landmark and click Teleport.
 
Welcome: If you are stuck and unable to change clothing, please follow these steps. Press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D on your keyboard.
 
Welcome: This will add new items to the menu at the top of your screen. You should now see 'Client' and 'Server' listed there as well. Click on Client > Click on Character > Click on Character Tests > Choose a Male or Female Test.
 
Welcome: To See the History of these messages click 'ctrl <h>'.
 
If you would like a copy of this item, please contact Savannah, Dirk, or Myself.  Hope it helps.  See ya soon.
 
 
July 21 (ScubaChris) Worked with Savanah (who should get an award for people helped) this afternoon.  For some reason we had a period where we got a several underage users (at least three or four).  We tried to figure out why they had all appeared and redirected the two we could catch to teen SL.
 
The (vast) majority of new citizens were not using the voice and were not really interested in it as they were trying to figure out clothes and things.  Also, the ones I asked about it (six or seven) all arrived without the Orientation Guide HUD so they had no clue what to do.  Savannah and I were wondering if it might be possible to have them arrive with the chat already enabled. In other words, Voice Enabled is the default.  If not, it would be nice if they were given directions on the web page to turn it on before they come in (using preferences on the log in page).
 
 
'''July 22 (DoteDote)''' Wow, what a difference priority makes on the sign-up page.  Wednesday and Thursday nights were slow - on average, one ''true'' new resident per hour.  Friday and Saturday nights, the place was jam-packed!  It was great to help these people, and many seemed receptive.  The language barrier is difficult to overcome.  I converted an Italian person to voice, and that was sorta fun.  I did my best to speak translated text, but had no way to translate his voice.  Regardless, it worked and he's on his way.  But, there are a lot of Europeans coming in overnights.
 
Observations about voice
:First, I haven't had a single female willing to enable voice.  I'd be curious to know whether Savannah has better luck with the females.  Second,  it seems people are more willing to enable voice if another user enables it (they want to, but don't want to admit they want to).  For example, I help one person enable voice, then turn around and see another with the option enabled.  Last night, I think we had three or four at once, along with Dirk and myself (about an hour later, voice completely died on the island).  It does seem that some people come onto the voice OI without having downloaded the voice client.  So far, I'm 0-for-5 in getting people to successfully d/l and return the the same OI.  They tell me they're going to d/l, but I never see them again (Savannah did say she had one return after a d/l, so that's good).
 
General OI observations
:I note three major problems on these islands.  First, the Help Island sign is poorly-worded.  People read it and think, "I don't need help, I want to get started", and they can't find a way to get started.  My suggestion, split the sign into two halves.  On one half, use animated textures to loop between English/Spanish/Japanese/German versions of the Help Island offer.  On the other side, maybe something like ''"After you've completed your Orientation Guide, Click Here to take the next step into your Second Life,"'' again cycling languages.  As it is today, people walk around forever trying to get off the island.  I wonder what would happen if we weren't there to tell them about the "Help Island" sign.
 
:Second, the OI guide textures are very slow to load.  I wonder whether is would be a positive, or negative, hit to loading times if there was an invisible prim near each area that would sorta pre-load the textures to speed the process.  And there should be a solution to not having the guide attach in the first place.  It seems this would be simple-enough... use a detector pad, same as the which detect when a person enters a tutorial zone.  The pad should query the OI Guide, and if it gets a response... do nothing, but if there is no response, it could IM the resident with instructions to get the OI Guide attached (search inventory for 'guide', right click, wear).
 
:Third, the character problem.  This isn't so major, but without volunteers to instruct residents in fixing the problem, I wonder if they give up on SL altogether.  For some folks, I think Appearance edit doesn't appear until the avatar problem is fixed... so the appearance tutorial wouldn't flow properly either.  Solution:  another sign... a picture of what the resident would see with the words "Does your avatar look like this?  If yes, then click for instructions."
 
July 23, 2007 (Yummie Olsen) 2:00-3:30: Hello, ok making up for lost time sorry. I have volunteered on the voice island now wednesday, thursday, friday and saturday, and i found a fill in for me for Sunday for my daughters birthday. Ok, so it is interesting and a lot of fun, very neat. I see a few turn on their voice. It is harder when they do speak a different language tho. On saturday dirk and i did have two underage come in. The only reason i found out his age, is because, I do ask people why they are not interested in turning on voice. I am wondering what would stop them. The kids at this point said he was 14, and questioned me as to how old you have to be to be in second life. I am not thinking, from volunteering at the voice help island that the voice should be enabled so they just have to push the talk button, and if they dont want to use voice when they log in that is fine, they dont have to push the talk button. Looking back to when I first logged into Second Life, i now remember my mindset, i was afraid to push any buttons at all. Well sort of like working with Microsoft windows, when i was new to a computer, I was afraid that i would mess something up. Make a huge error and break the program. I was the same way with Second Life. I did not know when i first came to second life that all those buttons were ok to push and look through. I do like to personally greet everyone, and i do like to interact with everyone, as i am a social person. When I am with others tho, other volunteers you will see tho that I do sit back, as to not hog the area, and take over. A lot of people I talked to were receptive to killing rats, which when I talked to them people that were like that, it is cause they were coming from fighting games. I do not understand why people show up nude, I do believe that needs fixed and sort of fast. It is not what we want to teach new residents to do in second life in a PG area. Ok, now on to the sign of help island, I got to think there should be another way to direct them to a sign. Well just like if there was a big sign, with a name of a place, you think it is the name of the place you are at. People generally start a game with not wanting to click anything, more or less afraid to, to be greeted by people makes them feel welcomed. I can say for me the language barrier has been one of the problems with voice and how to fix that i am not sure. I want others, french, german, spanish ie, to know there are others in second life that are like them, ones that they can meet up with and voice chat with. Meaning, for the world to be welcomed in and have others to be like them to be welcomed into their language. I guess it would help if they could get a teleport to a region that is going to be comfortable to them. I would hate to see someone leave second life due to not having a helper that speaks their language in voice. Maybe landmarks to the Helpers to different regions that are different languages, so they can read stuff in their native language. I guess i am thinking from the golden rule thing, I know if i went into a game that was a foreign language and no one could talk to me, or type to me, I would get really frustrated and i would most likely log out. So we do need to take care of others that speak different languages. I do know we cant accommodate to all languages, but we can make an effort to teleport them to a place they feel comfortable. Ok i will be writing more often, and writing a lot less. Sorry I had to play catch up here.
 
24 JUL 2007 (Savannah Glimmer) Since my last post, on 19 JUL, OI 15 has gone through a few technical blips, which has caused much time spent on getting new residents loaded and clothed.  There have been creative methods of getting messages across to new users, as described by Phree above, via notecards created by Dirk, and through text chat.  With all of this going on, attempts to get new residents on voice was still a priority.  I noticed some people standing in front of the voice instruction board on their own accord, and making attempts to enable voice.  Some were successful, some had to go back and download the voice client.  Requests to setup help were always put out in chat.  If a resident asked for help, the directions were typed in chat, which we found caused others to follow suit and enable their own. Up until tonight, the most residents on voice chat with the mentors was two or three at one time.  Tonight however, volunteering with Phree, we had five residents in voice chat with us at one time.  One of the people in voice chat was from Brazil and we did not understand each other at all, yet seemed to still break the language barrier and had a lot of laughs, all of us together.  One of the residents, who was also there yesterday, did not opt to talk, but listened and gave hearty "lol's" in text chat in response to our conversation. Once a resident uses voice, helping them is so much easier.  Given that all mentors are on the same channel, the person on voice chat really benefits from a group who can help, vs. one mentor focused on them and typing, while other mentors type to other residents.  I also saw that residents who were in voice together, became more social in text chat together, helping each other if they spoke the same language, and helping us to translate at times. I think a solution to the translation issue might be to attempt use of "Speech Tools". This product translates in 19 languages, both from voice or text, and puts out male or female voice translation (the new version sounds less robotic). I will try to use it but will likely crash. If someone else wants to volunteer, please let me know and I will get a copy to you or give you the LM to go test it out first.  I didnt see any brown-white-purple av's tonight so maybe that issue is repaired. : )
 
24 July 2007 (Master Quatro) - There is an issue of proper progression: do we send people to help island first in order to become somewhat familiar with SL and then get them into voice when they are not constantly trying to figure out this new environment, wearing clothes, changing shapes etc. I have found that the there is a basic order of needs when a new subscriber first enters SL: 1. Very basic inderstanding of surroundings (where am I, what is this, what am I doing here) 2. Need to communicate (be understood) 3. Preoccupation with "look", shape, skin (how do I change gender? how do I look like you?. 4. Need to be dressed in anything other then basic purple (I need clothes, where do I get them?. 5. Need to find worthwhile activity (what do I do now? how do I get out of here? where can I go from here?)
 
There is a high level of impatience, expectation, disappointment due to the necessary time and effort involved in having a basic understanding of how to navigate SL and how to "make" things. Most new subscribers simply are not interested in voice. I have been able to convince only 2 individuals to even attempt it. We are presenting them with an option well beyond their basic needs. They are use to typing in chat environments and this is ok here too. There needs to be a better explanation of what to expect from voice before the individual enters SL. The web presentation previous to entry should be organized to provide a basic introduction to voice in a way appropriate for neophites not present SL users. I agree with others' comments about difficulty of communication with subscribers who don't speak languages that we are familiar with. They are frustrated by not being able to be understood.
 
 
I welcomed the new residesnt with this copy and paste -- Taylaa Williamson, Tuesday, July 24, 2007,
 
Each time a new resident would land on the island in a group, I would paste this:  If anyone is intersted in communicating wtih us in Voice, please follow the directions on the black board on how to enable Voice.
 
The board that has the instructions for how to enable voice isnt noticable to anyone.  It's dark and visually invisible; not to mention the language barrier for those who don't know English.  Perhaps a Large Sign, or a Flashing Sign indicating "Voice Communication Instructions" would help; or a White board with black fonts or Black board with white letters.
 
Throughout my shift, the majority of of the new residents ignored what I typed about enabling voice, however, there were 3 who had an interest in it and they were sucessful in getting thier voice communication going.  There was also 1 person who was using the first look client and went thru the steps to enable voice but they weren't able to get voice going.  This person said the didnt see the white above our head but he did get the voic controls and they were useless to him.
 
 
July 24 (ScubaChris MIA) Hi all,  Sorry that I missed my shift today. Something happened with the power outage. Every time I try and launch SecondLife, I crash.  Sometimes I make it all the way in and sometimes not.  Working on a fix and hope to be back tomorrow.


==Strategies and General Observations==
==Strategies and General Observations==

Latest revision as of 16:21, 7 November 2008

Out of Date

The volunteer information on this page is now out of date and will be kept for historical purposes. Please do not update information on this page.

This page is to be edited and kept up to date by the Voice Test Team currently staffing Orientation Island 15.

Voice Test Team Stats

Voice Test Stats

Diary

Please record your strategies for the day along with your efforts and observations below (please put the date after each entry).

Week 1 Diary (submissions to wiki from first week)

SAMPLE: I greeted residents by singing a song. -- Kurz Linden, Monday, July 16, 2007, noon-5pm

Sucess with a few more residents using the Voice Features --Taylaa Williamson, Thursday, Aug 2, 2007. I just wanted to say how pleased I was today to find a lot more new residents using the voice features. There were a few problems with language communications but besides that barrier, few more residents decided to utilize it. The only issue that is bothering me is when they land in the center of the landing area, most of them wants to know, "What do we do here", How do I change my apperance", "How do I fly". *Sigh* Back in SL Cave dwelling days, Orientation island was more functional. When new residents would first land, they were forced to stop and "Read" the tutorials, so by the time when most of them would reach the mainland, they would have known most of the basic skills needed to survive on the new land (because back then, as we know, there weren't any help islands). Plus, on occassions when I would visit the old orientation islands, I would observe new residents helping each other. Please bring back the old way or move the landing area to the top of the castle in the appearance area (or else where) so that when they first land in the game, they will be forced to learn how to make changes to their avatars or learn a few of the basic skills. Thank you.. Tay

Yummie Olsen, Monday, August 13, 2007. It has been a wonderful experience helping new people get acquainted with Second Life through voice. The voice did help with teaching new people and to welcome them into Second Life. I think the voice made it more personal, that we were humans at the welcome area and it was easier to talk a lot of them through directions. I liked to welcome people in individually by their names and talk to everyone as they enter. Some of the times I had directions for everyone, that I did copy out of a notecard that Tay, Dirk and I made. Other times I went into the areas like the move area and talked them through where to go in that area and what to do for the tutorials. I walked a few through the tutorials, and helped them realize what they needed to be doing. It seemed that the tutorials were a bit long in time to accomplish for new people entering into second life but yet taught some important things along the way. I did run into still people who did not have their tutorials on when they arrived, I wound up talking many through how to get it attached. Once they got it on they were set and ready to go. It was neat to see the avatars jumping when they accomplished something, gave me a good feeling that I did help them and knew they were doing the tutorials. It was great working with everyone in the volunteer group, and along the way I met some great people. I enjoyed being a part of the group a real lot. It was nice meeting everyone, the volunteer members, the new residents, and the Lindens that ran it and were a part of it. Thank you very much for letting me be a part of a great group of people. Yummie Olsen

DoteDote Edison: I was generally online during the overnight hours for SL. Therefore, the majority of new residents didn't speak English natively. For those without voice, I first tried using text translations, but that became very tiresome after a few days. For those with voice, the majority didn't have a mic or chose not to speak. However, this is where I made progress. Most non-english speakers were able to understand slow-talk English... at least enough to understand what was happening. The added bonus was that other non-voice residents would see the one-sided conversation, and decide to enable voice themselves.

When voice was pre-enabled, I noticed many people rez and walk around with the dot... but if I said hello via voice, they would stop and disable. For those who stuck with voice, it was really great to actually speak to people rather than type to them... though I'd say less than 30% actually chose to communicate via voice. With these folks, I was certainly able to convey more information than I had previously via chat. I was able to go in-depth with things, and explain more complexities about SL (to those who were interested), without worry about confusing others in the area (for example a few people had 3D design experience and I could talk sculpties with them). Other folks were just happy to get voice working, then wanted to go off and explore the Island on their own. So, it was a mixed bag for me. All in all, it was way easier for me to help others when they had voice enabled, and those folks were certainly eager and excited about exploring the rest of SL... but there were still many who just seemed lost and unresponsive most of the time (likely language barrier).

Finally, after three weeks on that OI Island, I feel the need to state the most obvious roadblocks I saw. First, people think the OI is Help Island. And that large sign "Visit Help Island" doesn't help. For the residents who thought they were already on Help Island, the sign was ignored... for those who didn't want any help and only wanted to see the rest of SL... the sign was ignored... The only time the sign worked was when someone clicked it, and the others read the chat spam. People would then click in droves just to go elsewhere. The second problem is with the tutorial HUD. Unfortunately, there aren't enough language options. If the majority of residents are Europeans, seems Spanish or German would be good additions. Also, with the HUD, there is no way to go back and choose a different language. There were 3-5 people I spoke with who had accidentally clicked on the HUD when it was blurry, and they were stuck with Japanese characters (one person thought it was alien text and part of the "game"). --DoteDote Edison, 8/13/2007

Final Entry for the voice test on Orentation Island 15. -- Taylaa Williamson, Tuesday August 14, 2007. The Voice Test Project was a really good idea and I think a lot of the data collected (once the new residents were faced with the enabling tutorial) was a sucess. However, there was an issue with the language barrier. I would direct people who wanted to enable the voice feature to please read the directions on the black board. I would use my translaor to direct those who didnt speak English, but those who couldn't speak English couldnt read it. lol Making it hard to explain; which was a pain. lol Also, I talked to many who didn't like the idea of using the voice feature because it was bringing too much or real life into the game, as I was told. And, lets not bring up the Deaf Community. ehehhehe

When those who did have thier voice feature enabled heard me speak to them in voice, the non English speaking residents couldn't understand me and of course I had no clue what they were saying. But, I would still say, "Congratulations on enabling your voice feature and if you need any help, please let me know". hehehehe I knew they had no idea what I was saying but I tried to say that to everyone, I like to make everyone feel welcome :)

In conclusion, my entire voice test experience was great. I met a lot of new people and had a chance to have some very nice conversttions with people all over the world. I'm personally in-love with this feature because I have really bad hands and my typing is limited at times because of the pain, so this feature is a god sent for me. On the shifts I did work, I would estimate about 10% of the new residents had thir voice enabled, or would enable it after I instructed them how to do it. So, my vote for the voice feature is 2 Thums Up! lol BTW, what is this feature going to cost us monthly? lol One last thing.. PLEASE BRING BACK THE FUNCTIONAL ORIENTATION ISLAND!! *Deperate Plea* heheehhehe :D Taylaa Williamson signing out. :P

Strategies and General Observations

Low Volume/No Volume in Windows Vista: This is a known issue with Windows Vista that affects some Second Life residents. The workaround/solution is to uninstall the audio drivers in Device Manager then reboot the system to allow Windows to reinstall the audio drivers. -- Dirk Talamasca, 12:54 AM PDT

Voice Not Working in Windows Vista: Some Second Life residents running Windows Vista cannot get SLVoice.exe to engage. The workaround/solution is to run SLVoice.exe in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2).

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-compatibility-mode[1] -- Dirk Talamasca, 1:11 AM PDT

Observation - Gestures and sounds interrupt voice chat. To make voice chat more enjoyable, you may disable background sounds. Pictured Below are my personal preferences while in voice chat. Simply pulling the slider controls up to a higher level later allows you to enjoy the gestures and other background sounds that you are accustomed to. Dirk Talamasca July 15th, 2007 7:51 AM PDT

Slvoice-volume.gif

Schedule

Please note that this is only a suggested schedule. Please feel free to drop by whenever you have availability or as warranted by the number of new users on the orientation island.

Second Life Time (eastern time) 5am-9am (8am-noon) 9am-noon (noon-3pm) noon-5pm (3pm-8pm) 5pm-8pm (8pm-11pm) After 8pm (after 11pm) - see note below
Monday Evie, Master Taylaa, Yankee, Yummie (2-3:30) Renee, Dirk, Hinkley (until 3pm) Kerian, Savannah (after 6pm) James, ScubaChris, DoteDote (after 10pm)
Tuesday Savannah (from 6am), Master Bubbles (from 8am), Dirk, Yummie (2-3:30), Taylaa Renee, ScubaChris, Bubbles (until 2pm) Kerian, Evie, Phree2Be (from 4pm) James, Destiny, DoteDote (after 10pm)
Wednesday Evie Savannah, Taylaa, Yankee, Yummie (2-3:30) Renee, Dirk, Hinkley (until 3pm) Kerian James, Destiny, ScubaChris, DoteDote (after 10pm)
Thursday Savannah (from 6am), Master Bubbles (from 8am), Dirk, Yummie (2-3:30), Taylaa Renee, ScubaChris, Bubbles (until 2pm) Kerian, Evie James, Destiny, DoteDote (after 10pm)
Friday Evie, Master Taylaa, Yankee, Destiny, Yummie (2-3:30) Renee, Dirk, Hinkley (until 3pm) Kerian, Savannah (after 6pm) James, ScubaChris, Phree2Be, DoteDote (after 10pm)
Saturday Savannah (from 6am), Master Bubbles (from 8am), Dirk, Yummie (2-3:30) DoteDote, Yankee, ScubaChris, Bubbles (until 2pm) Kerian, Evie, Renee James, Destiny, Phree2Be
Sunday Master Savannah, Yankee, Destiny, Yummie (2-3:30) Yankee, Dirk, Hinkley (until 3pm) Kerian, Phree2Be James, ScubaChris

Floater: Linda

Note: Those volunteering during the after 8pm SLT (after 11pm EDT) slot, stay as long as you'd like while new users continue to appear on the OI (obviously not intended to be all the way until 5am)

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