Linden Lab moves new Second Life Web-page into tentative production

by Tateru Nino Dec 23rd 2008 at 10:00PM

Filed under: News items, Opinion, Second Life

The new front page for the Second Life Web-site has been somewhat contentious among some users of the service, even though they don't actually normally see it themselves. The bulk of the traditional style Web-page has been replaced with a black, sort of iPhoneish Flash-based series of capsule images that pop out when clicked on to reveal a short marketing blurb.

It all rather flies in the face of what we all know works well in good Web design -- or at least what we think we know. Often there's a huge gulf between theory and practice, and it's hard to tell when that gulf actually exists and where it might be.

Linden Lab has done a smart thing (and we're not talking about the design here, which we actually don't care for very much), and it is something well worth emulating. They tested the design in a series of empirical trials. Whatever you or I might think about the design and it's potential effectiveness, Linden Lab says they have the numbers to demonstrate that it performs better at achieving what they want than the original.

We're not sure exactly what the numbers and the success criteria actually are, mind. We asked Linden Lab when the trials commenced and were unable to get an answer. Nevertheless, whatever they were hoping to achieve apparently has been. You'd hardly expect the new page to be kept if the results weren't an improvement.

Assuming the success criteria adequately describe what they want to achieve, then this design actually works, whether or not we think it should be working. Katt Linden alludes to some of the tested metrics, which seem to be all the usual New User Experience metrics.

Encouragingly tests are set to continue to ensure that the new page continues to yield the results that Linden Lab wants to achieve.

Expertise is all very well (and quite often critical), but things that are particularly tied to society and sociology (like marketing and conversion) change over time, and empirical trial is the only way to determine if the old wisdom is still any good. Many marketing and user-experience firms are founded on the results of empirical trials that are as much as half a century out-of-date.

It's nice to see fresh measurements, even if we don't know quite what they're trying to achieve. At present the new site design is only visible to users who are not logged into the site.

Tags: linden-lab, opinion, second-life

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

skribe said on 12:03AM 12-24-2008

Given our experience with the SP directory, I'm not entirely convinced that the Lindens fully grasp this new-fangled web thingy.

Tateru Nino said on 12:51AM 12-24-2008

Well, this was made by a highly successful web development company, not the Lab. Of course, that doesn't necessarily help if the customer insists on something daffy anyway.

But still, the Lab says this is working better, and we don't have any data to the contrary.

Jay said on 12:48AM 12-24-2008

I went looking for the "Economic" Statistics link last night to see how many regions had been dropped MTD in December and gave up.

Maybe that is the aim of this game's writers... make it impossible to find anything?

Tateru Nino said on 12:51AM 12-24-2008

Down 1,535 to Midnight 22 December.

Doubledown Tandino said on 1:58AM 12-24-2008

I can't believe it took a highly sucessful web development firm to come up with 15 picture boxes.

I also can't believe that LL has their webpage on the top of their improvements list.

here's a few of my theories:

a) firefox has an addon called cooliris. I'm guessing the web development firm just copied the cooliris look so they didn't have to work too hard on appearance. They are hoping that cooliris feel will catch on as the future of web browsing.

b) LL doesn't want people on their webpages. Perhaps the past metrics showed that some people are just that stupid that they believed the old homepage was actually Second Life.

c) LL wanted the complete opposite of the previous. LL now wants simple pictures and no text.

d) Companies and corporations respond to "sleek". The old website, although completely functional, was not attractive to big spenders.

Grok said on 8:18PM 12-24-2008

The Cooliris look and feel is borrowed heavily from what Apple's been doing for the iPod and iPhone for the last couple of years. The design is a fairly well used trend now, so I don't think you can pinpoint it to one source.

It works here in my opinion.

skribe said on 2:26AM 12-24-2008

They claimed that the new SP directory was working better than the old one as well. The fact that it took 10 minutes or more (no hyperbole needed) to find a listing and that we received a grand total of 3 hits the entire time we were listed (about 9months) seemed to be inconsequential to LL - they ignored all the suggestions put forward at the meeting. Just as long as it was better than the old one.

Tateru Nino said on 3:07AM 12-24-2008

It's quite disheartening for users to attempt to provide input or collaborate with the Lab. The Lab rarely, if ever, reveals what its targets for a project are, and discard any suggestions that don't lead towards their goals.

The Lab certainly seems to be succeeding -- That is, it appears to be meeting all of its self-set goals on these projects... whatever they are. It is difficult to successfully contribute to any of these endeavors except by serendipity.

skribe said on 3:14AM 12-24-2008

Their consultation with users seems to be a purely political measure. Plus it's easy to say you've achieved goals when nobody knows what they are beforehand. An open question: Holistically is SL better or worse than it was a year ago?

loki said on 2:49AM 12-24-2008

As it is i think it would bring more first time users than the previous front page, but still does not give a realy full and powerful show of what SL has to offer. In the end they still have to perfect the most important part of joining SL so that people stay.

skribe said on 3:20AM 12-24-2008

I do not believe we will get more first time users until we have a triumphant video.

/bill_and_ted

=)

Vint Falken said on 4:38AM 12-24-2008

I'm sure that 'more effectiveness' is because I hit the 'free membership' & 'start now' buttons trice in stead of the picture image because I suck at scrolling & keeping track what I already clicked. *nods*

Crap Mariner said on 9:03AM 12-24-2008

Flash-for-Flash's sake.

I'm sure these designers were using BLINK and BGSOUND tags ineffectively when that was new and annoying.

FlipperPA Peregrine said on 10:30AM 12-24-2008

What this page really needs is some midi-muzak playing in the background!

Gwyneth Llewelyn said on 10:38AM 12-24-2008

Mmmh it all boils down to taste really. From LL's marketing department point of view, what counts is that the new webpage, from their point of view, is more effective, according to their (unpublished) metrics and (unknown) trials. That's what counts. If it's nice or ugly, well, with 16 million residents potential submitting input, it would be pretty much impossible achieve consensus. It's obvious that companies cannot work that way.

On companies requesting "democratic input" from their customers (but then pretty much doing what they want/need/wish), read this blog article from DreamHost's CEO. It should shed some light on how LL actually thinks, too.

Gwyneth Llewelyn said on 10:39AM 12-24-2008

Pfft, embedded URLs don't work any more. Here goes the missing URL for the above comment:

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2008/11/25/democracy-at-dreamhost/

Moe Greene said on 11:17AM 12-24-2008

I HATED the old home page and while I find this new one a bit cumbersome to get around, I like the direction the designers are taking us in. As a long time resident, I would have liked to have seen a better mix of avatar depictions but that is a pretty minor nit-pick on an otherwise positive change.

spanky said on 1:14PM 12-24-2008

When is massively going to show imvu some love? The service has arguably more users than SL, a larger UGC virtual catalog, and a lot of users who also play WoW.

Grok said on 8:04PM 12-24-2008

I find the new design much more engaging than the previous. I get a much better sense of what the game is about and I'm more inclined to click around and see what's up. My only concern is the disjointed feel I get once I click on a link and it takes me to a page that barely resembles the splash page.

Yo Brewster said on 1:43PM 12-26-2008

My first reaction to this design was "WTH" but then after playing with it for a while, it does accomplish the first impressions goal. Within 15 seconds you basically know what Second Life is all about. Unfortunately once you click on any link the layout and colors change so drastically that it gives you the impression you're on a different site. Weird approach...