Voice Test Team

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
• Link to Volunteer Kickoff Meeting Agenda

Voice Test Team Stats

TO BE ADDED AFTER WEEK 1

Diary

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

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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:

Welcome: Hello All Welcome to Second Life

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."

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

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, Destiny, 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, Phree2Be (from 4pm)	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, Phree2Be (from 4pm)	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	Evie, 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)