NMC Campus Observer

Design Diary: Viewer 2 Orientation

NMC Virtual Worlds : Apr 19, 2010 11:52am

Over the past week I’ve been standing at the intersection of many new frontiers, all coming together in one of our next big projects: NMC Orientation 2.0. This project will involve not only the brand new Version 2.0 viewer, but also the culmination of over two years of reflecting on and updating our previous NMC Orientation. The original NMC Orientation is not only one of my favorite projects but also one of our most visited and loved locations. There will be a slight bit of sadness when it receives it’s final Bon Voyage. (Don’t worry, it is still there and we will let you know before it is cleared for new purposes.) I wanted to do a quick “Design Diary” post using the notes I’ve been capturing on this process in order to invite you to share your own thoughts and experiences on how the new NMC Orientation can best serve you.

Originally, we had discussed updating the orientation, as we had done with other client releases, to reflect the Viewer 2 changes. After spending a few months ingesting Viewer 2 and really coming to the conclusion that its newness is quite embraceable and meaningful in terms of new user experience, we are ready to embrace changes in our own Orientation and create a new one.
We’ve generally always oriented people by showing them how to do specific things or tasks through stations. The new viewer is specifically built to keep things in context and to allow a more intuitive approach. The more I use it, the more I see that things are where one would “think” they should be. I don’t say that as a Second Life user of 5 years who knows the previous navigation system like the back of my hand, but just as your average person using a viewer to access a program. The more I let go of my previous conceived notions about Second Life User Interface navigation, the more I find that this viewer makes using Second Life an easier experience for anyone.
In this respect, instead of showing people how to do specific parts of Second Life as most training was originally set up, it occurs to me that actually showing them how things work as a unit may be better. This new viewer is the first that lends itself to intuitive use and I’d love to capitalize on that.
There are a couple more examples of “changes of heart” design wise on the old orientation. While our intermediate orientation allowed for quick landmarking of information so that educators could quickly bookmark a topic and share that information with others, it was essentially just a series of non related topics for your average new person. A bulk of the really good stuff was in this section, yet it was pretty inaccessible to a new user as it did not allow them to develop the relevant context in which to mentally log the information. Since Viewer 2 makes Second Life context so much more apparent, I’d love to really establish a similar “contextual learning” in our new orientation.
If I were to summarize my goal for the new orientation it would be this: Teach new users appropriate skills in a context that allows for empowering discovery of “power user” features through meaningful tasks.

As always, I’d love your feedback. How would our brand new orientation work best for you, your students, and fellow faculty members? What issues do you face when facilitating orientation that could be solved through better design?

Originally published at NMC Virtual Worlds

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