MDStyle Orientation Island

MDStyle Orientation Island Testing

Some of you may be familiar with the MDStyle Orientation Islands, others may not be. These are 4 new orientation islands that Linden Lab is testing styled after the successful Meltingdots orientation island. Blackbriar and MDStyle Orientation are copy of former form of "Meltingdots" SIM. Meltingdots SIM is for Japanese newbie zone. There are four MDStyle OIs. The islands are MDStyle Orientation Island 1, MDStyle Orientation Island 2, MDStyle Orientation Island 3 and MDStyle Orientation Island 4. Just type the island name into the map to go there.

The way our Orientation islands are set up, we will need to 'seed' these four islands with people to pull new residents to them from the registration process and then we can begin to collect data on how new residents take to this form of orientation. We need at least 8 people there at all times if possible.

During your time in SL in the next few weeks please try and check the green dots on these islands. Drop by if they go below 8 per island, that's the magic number...lol. We would be very appreciative! Amber will let you know when the test is over.

Mentors please keep this page updated See OIslanders_Test_Team and Voice_Test_Team for example of past efforts.

Efforts and Observations

Diary of Events

• October 9, 2007 -- I have been stopping by the MDStyle OI for the past couple weeks, however now I've observed the MDStyle OIs to begin with population. Concentrating just on the inside experience mainly, I found it to be very linear which is a plus and imo needed. Keeping a new resident focused on the task and not having to choose from paths will make them less overwhelmed and confused. I do wonder if in future redesign of LL on OI, if the staging or activity areas such as Appearance, etc. should be larger. I am seeing several residents grouped very close to the appearance sign and almost walking over eachother. Since the new resident won't be able to compare their OI experience from LL to MD styles, further observation on how they grasp the basic activities will be needed. McPhenius Swain

• --Destiny Niles 21:33, 9 October 2007 (PDT) - Three things I noticed. 1) The landmark givers right after they leave the building are in a bad stop. Many new residents TP without seeing the rest of the island. 2) The 'free item tower' is not self explanatory and the new residents don't know how to use the floor teleporter nor how to purchase items. 3) The new linear (really old) is much better then the current OI. The building preventing new residents from flying off is effective, but the current OI did have some good points too that should be incorporated into this island, such as move city.

• --Neovo Geesink 12:33, 10 October 2007 (CET) - To me, it occured that the Dutch translation of quite some infopanels were not quite logic or even plain in error.

I have heard from fellow Mentors that other languages meight be allso not that precise. I have checked those panels and sent a new Dutch translation of the panels in a notecard to the owner. (He / She is a Linden) I have not yet seen the new translation in place (Up to 10/09/2007), nor did I got a response for that, other then the Acknowledgement that the Notecard is Accepted. I allso noticed that there is no translation in Dutch on the panels outside the building, except the one of the Building area. I do subscribe with the comments of Destiny Niles, regarding the 'free item tower'.

• --Shiva Aabye 03:47 AM, 10 October 2007 (PDT) - I agree, the landmark givers are a little bit misplaced, there is still so much space on the island...I would work over some translations, I can say this only for the german ones. And, there is something strange in the "sandbox": You can't edit something by using the pie menu, Ctrl+3 and select works.

• --Patchouli Woollahra 10:18, 10 October 2007 (PDT) The inability to use "Build" menus or "Edit" in the MDstyle OIs is partially caused by the island being flagged explictly as a Orientation Islands. Regions flagged as such by Linden Lab will stop teleports not powered by a landmark, and gray out the "Build" button. This behaviour was beneficial in older LL OIs which had no such thing as a sandbox, but this needs to be corrected if rollout of the MDstyle is to continue. In any case, I believe teaching of lowest-level topics relating to SL navigation the way MeltingDots does it is the correct way to progress.

• --Edward Griffith 13:54, 10 October 2007 (PDT) Fist and most important - I think the general idea is wonderful. The path analogy is far superior to the hub and spoke model. Your design is clean and un cluttered, and the instructions clear.

My comment on the front "in the building" part of the orientation introduction is that there is none of the quirky fun stuff that marks SL. For instance - after the plain sign instructing us to chat how about implementing something like the "Well" from the Pencil Factory on The Port? In that exhibit, what you say in chat appears as solid letters in a well. My point is - something brief but interesting in the form of a task directed exercise that reacts to the avatar would be a welcome "warmer" at the communication site.

I would recommend the same in avatar appearance - provide a few directed exercises - demonstrating the relationship between shape and skin and how folders can be used to quickly change appearance. I also recommend information that shapes skins and avatar appearance are huge markets in SL and that before someone spends hours trying to tweak their default - they might want to get through the rest of the orientation, THEN see what is available and base their modifications on that.

Second - My BIG question is: Why are the green landmarks signs right outside the intro building? I watched several totally unprepared newbies TP to Yadni's in mid chat sentence. Yes they can get to Help Island Public . . . but with no clue yet about search, groups, the map or even IM's - I have no idea how they are going to find it - as the average resident isn't very aware of HI or OI Public.

The idea of directed destinations is splendid. My suggestion would be to move move those signs to the END of the path. Use the space instead for teaching people what their search tool and their map is. Have folks find Help resources in SL, and some classes they might be interested in using the search tool. That will serve to teach them the tool - and serve to get them aware of further help available all at the same time. For the map - Have them find the free store right by them on the map, see the beacon and understand it.

Next we come to the Freebie store. I'm afraid I am NOT fond of the vertical design. Without signs or indications what to do, the place feels cold, empty, and confusing. Some labels on product and the teleporter are needed. A few more signs here and a LOT more product would help. Again, directed actions would improve the experience. A simple exercise in un-boxing new product, finding it in inventory, and using a pose stand would make sense.

The location of the sand box and the cow pasture should be swapped, and your arrow path should go through the sandbox. Again, I suggest a directed activity here - one with obvious practical importance to residents. Provide a living room with furniture and have folks arrange and resize the furniture. Also - provide an avatar attachment like a belt, and have folks resize, move and adjust the belt. That will give camera, edit, pose stand and avatar appearance skill practice all in one simple exercise.

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--Theodore Folsom 19:08, 10 October 2007 (PDT)

• All signs and boards are done well and also have translations into the common languages on them. Minus: Only the description was translated - not the full text. Non-english residents could read the description of the station in their language but not what to do and how to do it on that station ....

• "Time to fly" ... i recognized that a lot of new residents were trying to walk up the walls and follow the arrows in that way hehe. Barriers in front of the red arrows may avoid that a bit. Also a lot of new residents were typing a lot of "E"´s while trying to fly. It seems to be confusing. That could be avoided by showing them only one possibility of flying for the beginning (maybe the "page up, page down" - method).

• Also i recognized, that (like on the old-style OIs) a lot of new residents keep asking how to get away from the OI. I know, there´s a sign which guides them to Help-Island and other places but maybe there´s a possibility to make it a bit more clear. Like a sign whith big red capital letters on it which says "CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE" or so ...

Beside of that i think those MDStyle-OIs are a great improvement of the new users SL experience. I really like them. They´re very well structured, linear and they do really guide the user through his first steps in Second Life.

Ok, thats it so far. Keep up the good work.

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• --Richard Noonan - 10 OCT 2007

Overall view of the MDStyle was originally made few weeks ago. I think it has it's advantages to some but while there are several areas that need some special attention and more user friendly standards need to be reviewed and applied. Those observations are listed below;

• Editing items

You cannot edit your own building items or anything you rez from inventory. I don't know if this was an oversight, but needs to be corrected. Also, there is no scripting allowed.

• Orientation Labyrinth of Learning

There is no access of entering these areas unless you start from the end or the beginning. This labyrinth of key locations should have administrative entrances and exits from it to facilitate those Mentors' or key personell to access those areas of need; most ideally the new residents.

• Kiosks

The Kiosks need to be alternated or on some kind of alternating selector. The first one most all seen was the Babbler location on Phreak Island, and where most teleported to.

• The club/dance floor

There is no music in this area, for that matter I did not see anywhere there was an option to hear streaming music.

• MeltingDots Theme

The name of the theme The Meltingdots eludes me. I suppose I need to get out more because I have no idea what this is. I did some research on it and found a youtube link to some teenagers melting Dots [candy] in the microwave. Hince the word MeltingDots.

• Conclusion I can understand why a lot of confusion of some of the residents would warrant such issues of the theme. Overall it is a workable enviroment with the suggestions and guidence the Mentors have suggested. After all they will be in attendance more than any other Second Life Resident.

I received more questions on "how do I get out of here" or "help me im stuck" comments than any other.

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• --Zack Preminger I agree with the remarks about the freebie tower.

But overall I think the team who designed the MDStyle OI did a great job, as it solved many issues that the previous version caused (like not knowing which tutorial to choose, residents not getting the HUD, etc..)

I've been walking around those new OI's for about two days now. I think what is still needed is a clearer explanation on the fact that once residents leave the OI they can't come back, Maybe this should be placed around the "Go out and have fun" board, while we still have their attention on learning things. After this point, there is only 2 questions I still heard more than any others. "How do we get out/travel?" I really think it would help having a board showing the use of Search and Map somewhere, and it would also save mentors the trouble of having to repeat it to almost every resident. The second question is "How do we get money?" I don't think it's necessary to place a board for this one on the OI, but my idea for mentors who read this is to create a detailed notecard. I got one I can send you if you feel tired of going over that question as well.

I think that's all, keep up the good work everyone :)

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--Odysseus Fairymeadow 10:03, 11 October 2007 (PDT) Okay, first time looking at the MDStyle, impressions

• Could someone set these islands to be group owned? A common problem with both this and the standard OI is prim litter hanging about (when I visited there I saw two vehicles floating about at various altitudes). Turning on auto-return would be great, but looking at the land stats half the place would disappear...

• People don't know how to use the elevator. The (empty) first floor would be a great tutorial on how to use them (they're gonna have to figure it out sometime) but setting the default action on the buttons to "sit" would enable them to start working on left-click. Also bring back more fun stuff, I still give the Unidentified Fun Object to random newbies.

• The teleport locations after the initial tutorial are badly inappropriate. Should only link to Help Island or someplace that would work as a Welcome Area. A link to the Babbler store is not one of these, nor is the Tower of Prims (especially so far away from the sandbox). An on-island Babbler vendor would be great (or mentors trying to stumble over themselves pushing the "gift" button before the newbie disappears). Some of these signs would work great in WA's I would think (sign with rotating textures?). Replace the non-WA links with ones to other languages (like the links we received for international-friendly places)

--RobertKlein Dogpatch 12:14, 11 October 2007 (PDT) The MDStyle Island appears to be an attempt at combining the Orientation Island with the Help Island into one neat package. To this end the design team seems to be well on its way towards accomplishing this goal. Some major and minor tweaks are needed and will be found in the “Ideas to Try” section. After spending quite a few weeks on these islands I have observed newbies seem to congregate in areas of the terminus and never come out. They will make it all the way to the end after the fly zone, turn around, and wander back into the terminus again. They prefer the larger area at the editing appearance section. If there are 10 people on the island, 7 of them will stay only in the terminus chatting. After emerging from the terminus they usually blow right past the signs since they can fly and head straight for the tower. Afterwards they just seem to wander around and not understand what to do next, but they are really good at chatting. :) Eventually they discover a sign that allows them to teleport and they do. I have not seen anyone click on the large spinning green disks.

Strategies

Ideas to try

• I have found that standing at the landing point can be pretty crowded when several new residents arrive. Plus, they haven't learned how to chat, so they may become fustrated even with a nice "Hi, welcome to Second Life" if they don't know how to respond. Although I am sure the greetings are well taken :) I've been standing near the chat sign or further into the building by appearance or flying. It's almost fun to see what a new resident types after reading the sign on how to chat. If they don't see you at first and you give them a response, it might just make there day! -- McPhenius Swain

• Yes, the landing area needs to be larger and placed higher in elevation to the rest of the terminus. The next area would be a level down connected by stairs and so on. This will "funnel" people in a natural downward progression. The closed in feeling of the terminus is nice but encourages people to stay in that area like a bunch of gerbils. A larger opening at the end of the fly zone would help to usher them out. Even better would be to drop them out of the fly zone right in the middle of the island like a big faucet. -- RobertKlein Dogpatch

• The "sign alley" is a bit overwhelming and needs to be sprinkled along the way in the terminus like airports do, just no teleporting items until after they get out of the terminus. -- RobertKlein Dogpatch

• A nice teleport pad that will poof them to various areas about the island would be nice. The only one I found was in the tower and it is not very easy to understand. Something bigger and more elementary with primary colors would be nice. -- RobertKlein Dogpatch

• Have not been able to get the dance pad games to work, they need to be fixed or removed. -- RobertKlein Dogpatch