Adaptive Path Blog

We are about halfway through our user research interviews. The research process has been an interesting combination of real world behaviors mixed with the Second Life experience. We’re conducting individual interviews with residents. Andy and myself meet the interviewee at a special conference room Linden Lab has let us use for the occasion. We all sit around the conference table, chatting a bit in world, and then we call the interviewee on the phone.

The rest of the interview happens as interviews have in most other projects. We talk about passionate tasks, goals and motivations, pain points and successes. We conduct almost all of the interview over the phone. The only difference between these interviews and others I have done is that we can see each other’s avatars on the computer screen. We aren’t making use of the ability to make our avatar shake hands or do other gestures. It’s all a verbal exchange on the phone.

But somehow it feels very different than other remote interviews I’ve conducted. The fact that there is a representation of each of us on our screens makes the encounter feel more personal. The way the resident has customized the look of their avatar gives us an insight into their personality that you don’t get from calling someone you’ve never met.

I’m a bit frustrated because I feel like we should be taking advantage of the opportunities that being in this virtual world presents to us. But we haven’t figured out how to do that. Talking seems the most efficient and effective way of learning. Using the IM or chat in world slows down the conversation, and you lose the dimensions of voice intonation, pauses, laughing and other verbal clues. And we don’t really gain anything by following an avatar around. In this brave new world, old tried and true methods seem to be working best. Who would have thunk it?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Second Life Case Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This post is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.