Delivering Information Effectively
by azwaldo on Jun.03, 2009, under design, education, usability
I mentioned a personal project in the last post. That design should find ample treatment here; in fact, this blog was created to track its development, actually beginning the day the project found purchase; the day I found land with which to experiment.
I have been describing the learning activity—and the project that encompasses it—to a few rezidents; eight or nine “cook’s tours” reducing my rambling into a concise description, locating each gem of an objective in the messy rough of ideas. I can say that I am learning much about virtual land administration and group management, and have been scripting effects that I might not have imagined.
But, in this post, rather than indulge what I have already found I want to describe something I am looking for…
Of the many design issues that have surfaced, the most challenging is the packaging of introductory information. Given the need to present instructions (user interface features, menu options, user preference settings, etc.), what is the best approach in combining the use of notecards, scripted chat, floating text, sound bytes and video?
This problem did not surprise me completely, though. The presentation of information is one of the types of design issues that I found reported elsewhere. I just could not have predicted the various ways this issue would eventually rear its head.
The learning activity itself will not be a steady stream of directions, like Help Island or any of the orientation paths I have visited; still, the user will benefit from some sort of introduction. Put it all in a video and the show drags on and on. Put too much in a notecard and users will drop it like a hot potato. (Of the last ten notecards you opened on arrival in a sim, how many did you read completely?)
And persistent, floating text just looks wrong; funky, neon mono-font hanging in mid-air. (Note to self: consider using a “Help” button of some sort…maybe a magic bottle that grants three hints to any user; the message delivered in floating text that appears only on touch.)
I have been told—more than once, already—that folks don’t like to read in SL, especially younger rezidents. Well, I am not ready to accept that “no text, no reading” is an approach that will serve us well. But, virtual world instruction does seem to have more delivery options than F2F. So…
What is the best approach?
2 Comments for this entry
Leave a Reply
www.flickr.com
|
June 3rd, 2009 on 6:53 am
I thought it interesting that Rezzable mainly used sound for their King Tut exhibit. Some of my friends thought the narration excellent whereas I found it a little long-winded. Bear in mind that nobody reads every (any?) web page in full either. It may be that text needs to factor that in, e.g. inverted pyramid etc.
June 3rd, 2009 on 9:01 pm
Wherever feasible, I try to use graphics and icons to convey meaning, either replacing text altogether, or augmenting it (and letting me reduce/simplify the accompanying text). Icons can also help users who don’t understand the language well to get a good idea of what they should do. For example, “Click here” can be replaced or made more effective by adding the familiar hand-with-pointing-finger icon that people recognize from clicking on links in web browsers.
Of course, sometimes there’s just too much information or too complicated text to use icons for it all. In those cases, some of my (somewhat subconscious) criteria for deciding what type of text are:
* Should the user have the information handy in the future or at different locations? For example, information about a store — the store owner probably wants the user to think of the store at home the next day, so they’ll offer a notecard. Likewise for game sim operators where the user should be able to refer to the game rules and conduct rules without having to return to the start point. On the other hand, if it’s information they only need while at a particular location (e.g. how to use a particular object in the scene), a notecard would not be a good choice.
* Is there a LOT of text the user must read? This is assuming that the amount of text cannot be further reduced; if it can, do that as much as possible. But, if it can’t be reduced, use a notecard for it. A texture showing that much text would be have to be very large, both in prim dimensions for the display, and in download size. And since the user won’t read it all anyway, better to save yourself the texture upload fee and just use a notecard.
Floating text is not a good choice for large blocks of text, since it will block the view forever, whereas a notecard can be closed after being (not) read.
* Does it need to update quickly or dynamically by a script? If it needs to be fast and dynamic, floating text is the only way to go. XyzzyText is another option for dynamic text like sign boards, but the glyph texture(s) can be slow to rez.
* Should the user be able to see it before the whole scene has rezzed? If so, textures are out of the question. As a somewhat silly example, making a textured sign that says “Do not walk forward off this cliff!” is just asking for trouble. The user may try to walk before the scene has rezzed and — woops, down they go! In such a case, I’d prefer floating text for information about a specific location, or a scripted “blue box” for general information. Notecards would be last on my list for this purpose. (Of course, if it were actually a cliff, I’d just put a fence to stop them accidently falling off…)
* Another option for text is actually web-on-a-prim, displaying a web page in place of a texture (via the About Land > Media tab). With some clever scripting, it’s even possible to display a different web page to each user. However, it’s only possible for users to see one web page at a time, and they must have streaming media enabled or they won’t see it at all.
* Video and audio are expensive to produce (in money or time/effort), so I tend to shy away from them. Audio also tends to be more difficult for people who don’t speak the language; with text, they can at least run it through an automatic translator. For people with big budgets for production and translation, though, well-done video and audio can be highly effective.