There have been many attempts to do this on the computer desktop over the years, none of which have garnered much market share.

It was not until recently that this concept reached a mainstream market. Apple’s Cover Flow is likely the first mainstream instance of such technology. What we don’t know is what research and resulting usage statistics look like for this design choice.

Besides Apple software, there is also recent experimentation happening on the web.

These blips on the radar could be happening for a number of reasons.

Maybe Papervision3D, a tool for creating 3D environments in Flash without additional browser downloads, has renewed the interest in this concept. Maybe web developers are taking stock in the growth of the virtual world sector. Or, maybe developers are experimenting with ways to make their projects more game-like.

Better than reality is the goal of computer interfaces according to usability pundit Jakob Nielsen. Many attempts to force the use of 3D “put the interface in the way of the users goal.”

While he is known for caring little for “eye appeal” in his theories, Nielsen chimed in on the subject of “3D for 2D stuff” in 1998:

“Evolution optimized homo sapiens for wandering the savannah - moving around a plane - and not swinging through the trees. Using 3D on a computer adds a range of difficulties:

[1] The screen and the mouse are both 2D devices, so we don’t get true 3D unless we strap on weird head-gear and buy expensive bats (flying mice).

[2] It is difficult to control a 3D space with the interaction techniques that are currently in common use since they were designed for 2D manipulation (e.g., dragging, scrolling)

[3] Users need to pay attention to the navigation of the 3D view in addition to the navigation of the underlying model: the extra controls for flying, zooming, etc. get in the way of the user’s primary task

[4] Poor screen resolution makes it impossible to render remote objects in sufficient detail to be recognizable; any text that is in the background is unreadable

[5] The software needed for 3D is usually non-standard, crash-prone, and requires an extra download (which users don’t want to wait for)”

Solutions to these problems are in the works, but as of today, Nielsen’s arguments 1,2,3 and 4 still hold true in 2008 and his 5th argument was only recently dismissed.

So when should we use 3D?

Nielsen says 3D is great for visualizing… well… 3D stuff.

“When you visualize physical objects that need to be understood in their solid form. Examples include surgeons planning where to cut a patient: the body is 3D and the location of the tumor has a 3D location that is easier to understand from a 3D model than from a 2D X-ray, mechanical engineers designing a widget that needs to fit into a gadget, chemistry researchers trying to understand the shape of a molecule, planning the layout of a trade-show booth.”

He also saw a place for 3D in entertainment:

“Entertainment applications and some educational interfaces can benefit from the fun and engaging nature of 3D, as evidenced by countless shoot-them-up games. Note that 3D works for games because the user does not want to accomplish any goals beyond being entertained. It would be trivial to design a better interface than DOOM if the goal was to kill the bad guys as quickly as possible: give me a 2D map of the area with icons for enemy troops and let me drop bombs on them by clicking the icons. Presto: game over in a few seconds and the good guys win every time. That’s the design you want if you are the Pentagon, but it makes for a boring game.”

Touché.

The killer 3D application for interacting with 2D stuff will either prove out in the very near future or will disappear again for a while. We certainly have the technology now to display it, it is now just a matter of making it better than reality.

If anyone reading this has seen any usability tests or research on this topic, I would love to get the opportunity to review it.

For those that are interested, I have added some notes to my slides and have it posted here for download. The white paper that was mentioned during the presentation will be published very soon.

If you are coming, be sure to wrap up lunch early on Thursday and head to Room 2 at 1PM for my session on virtual world platforms. This session was a huge hit at the San Jose Virtual Worlds Conference last year with standing room only, so get there early. Here is an iCal/vCal event invite (right click and select save/open) as a reminder.

For Shootout 2.0, I’ll be breaking worlds and platform technologies down into a usable framework and will address considerations for collaboration, simulation, and marketing objectives. If you happen to be with a platform or virtual world company, it’s in your best interest to be there to keep me straight on the facts and help field questions from the audience.

There’s much to cover, so show up caffeinated.

I couldn’t agree more.

There is an emerging trend among Web 2.0 sites to employ a gradual engagement model as a way to give users a taste, often times a complete activity or experience, before asking them to sign up.

Virtual worlds and MMOs are quite possibly the worst offenders when it comes to forcing users through a registration process. Guests are often relegated to look at sample screen shots and read descriptions of a world before deciding to hand over their personal information for a closer look.

By and large, enthusiasts have populated online worlds to date. Whether they are hardcore gamers or early adopters of virtual worlds, they don’t need convinced to try a new service and they don’t care how easy or hard it is to use.

The design paradigm must change if the industry is to be successful in attracting and retaining casual users. If you are publishing a casual social or game world this year, even in 2008 there is a chance it will be the first avatar-based, immersive experience for your users.

In some ways, the Free to Play model that many world designers are using is addressing the monetary investment piece of the puzzle, but most worlds are still requiring a sign-up process before putting users into the world.

As experience designers we need to move the sign-up process from the download/sign-up page to a series of interactions in the world. The percentage of casual prospective users that are lost between the web pages describing a virtual world and the sign-up form is non-trivial. Equally significant is the number of users lost between sign-up and entering the world.

If you are still not convinced, an excerpt of Wroblewski’s book has been posted over at A List Apart.

CCP [the makers of EVE Online] just started accepting candidacies for the Council of Stellar Management, or as their news post was amusingly titled, the Council of Stellar Awesomeness…This is a player-elected council of nine members who represent the playerbase to CCP, and CCP in turn promises to “attempt to accomodate all reasonable requests by player Representatives” and to “do everything in its power to resolve the topics presented.” They’re taking it pretty seriously, too — each term of the council requires a face-to-face meeting at the CCP offices, with travel (to Iceland!), lodging, and food paid for by CCP.

Incorporating user/player/resident feedback is an interesting phenomenon for MMO publishers. It is a hybrid of community management, governance and user-generated content.

This move by CCP is not the first time a sandbox MMO has attempted to give their high profile users a formal outlet to provide input and influence the publisher.

Second Life Views was a program started by Linden Lab and described as “a series of bi-monthly meetings with SL Residents to discuss the design and implementation of new features for SL.” To the best of my knowledge, the Views group has not met in quite a while. More recently, I noticed a Governance Team lead by Linden lab holding in-world office hours for residents to stop by to ask questions and discuss topics.

What makes the EVE Council different than other attempts like SL Views is the fact that players will be responsible to fellow players, not just advising the publisher of the MMO.

A major drawback of programs like SL Views and Town Hall forums is that users are likely to overwhelm the publisher and their ability to properly manage the input. After all, well managed MMO publishers have far fewer employees than they have users, right?

If you want to see more details about the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), you can download a brief on it here. I’m excited to see this in action in the coming months!

Asynchronous and synchronous terms began with technologists describing technology behind data communication. At some point we made the mistake in assuming this is a critical point of differentiation in describing the social interactions that ride the technology.

The truth is that technology is eroding synchronous communication while asynchronous communication has become so efficient that we can use it synchronously.

Our offline lives are being invaded by what Howard Rheingold refers to as digital distractions. People that read and write email on their Blackberry in a restaurant while their date is sitting across from them is a commonplace phenomenon today. I would argue that the conversation with the date and the email dialogue are asynchronous.

Personal computers of today are inherently designed to be asynchronous, making them a powerhouse for multi-tasking. While virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft simulate real-time environments, users rely heavily on features like chat history, inventory “drop boxes” and in-world email messaging systems for their social interactions.

While synchronous and asynchronous may be a way to distinguish underlying technology or loosely refer to the nature of virtual environments, we need to move the design discussion away from this being an either/or design choice.

Online social experiences should be designed from the ground up, using the right interactions and subsequent technology that make the most sense and are the most enjoyable for the users.

The founders of Bitstrips.com are passionate about user-generated content and comic strips. This week they launched a do-it-yourself comic strip service that garnered much deserved attention on the trade show floor at SXSW Interactive.

Bitstrips.com is an example of user-generated content at it’s best. I mean, who doesn’t at some point in life wish they could illustrate comics or draw? Taking an aspirational skill and making it fun and social for the masses is a winning strategy as proven by the likes of Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Users are able to customize an avatar for their account using the comic design tools and there are all the social networking tools we come to expect like friends, comments, ratings, etc. They put in some cool peer production features like shareable characters and the option to allow other users to edit your strips.

It didn’t take long for users to discover the peer production functionality. BA from Bitstrips created a Mark Zuckerberg character for this hilarious strip which was then used by Wired in their Twitter mash-up comic (featuring a snarky tweet by yours truly).

As with many user-generated content services, Bitstrips content rights are still evolving. Their current Terms of Service provides that users retain the rights to content they post (such as character dialog) but only grants a revocable license for non-commercial use of content created using the Bitstrips tools. During SXSW they told me they were talking to Creative Commons about a more robust licensing structure.

The “What Teens Want Online” panel consisted of one adult and a half dozen teens talking about their online and mobile habits.

The panel started out with the young panelists listing the websites they like to use and why. The common theme was personal interests (finding music), personal expression (profiles), and news (gaming, music).

“I don’t really use that avatar stuff,” said one teen panelist.

The panel reinforced a trend I’ve seen elsewhere that teens are not a rich demographic for virtual worlds.

Runescape and GAIA were the only specific virtual worlds/MMOs liked by the panelists, but it was clear they don’t use them much. Zwinky was mentioned by two panelists as being dull. Pay to play was a common objection to other worlds and games.

It was clear that the teens do not use social software for broadening their network of friends. While MySpace and FaceBook were ubitquitous, specialized social networks like Last.fm, iLike.com, Flickr, Twitter and Photobucket are not popular. When I asked a few of the panelists afterwards about these sites, only a few knew of Photobucket and made limited use of it.

On the mobile front, there was consensus that instant messaging has been replaced with unlimited SMS messaging. Aside from SMS, panelists use their phones for wallpapers, ringtones, games and photo sharing.

There is much interest in Unity right now because it offers advanced 3D graphics capabilities from within the web browser using a very modest plugin that installs without a browser restart. If you want to see the platform in action, checkout their website portfolio or play an Electric Sheep favorite, Raptor Safari developed by Flash Bang Studios.

Click here to listen or download.

His talk was excellent and consisted mostly of a rapid fire assault of smoking hot slides and anecdotes that impressed a full house with his prediction work. He drove home the notion that predicting much of the technological and biological evolution is very smooth (and predictable) when graphically represented in exponential terms.

At the end of his talk, Kurzweil provided these predictions for the next 20 years:

2010

• Images written directly to retinas.
• Ubiquitous high handwidth connections to the internet at all times
• Electronics so tiny it’s embedded in the environment, our clothing, our eyeglasses
• Full immersion visual-auditory virtual reality
• Augmented real reality
• Interaction with virtual personalities as a primary interface
• Effective language technologies

2029

• $1,000 of computing will equal 1,000 times the human brain
• Reverse engineering of the human brain completed
• Computers pass the Turing test
• Nonbiological intelligence combines the subtlety and pattern recognition strength of human intelligence with the speed, memory and knowledge sharing of machine intelligence.
• Non-biological inteligence will continue to grow exponentially whereas biological intelligence is effectively fixed.

He closed with the statement that in the next 20 years, the sands of time will begin flowing backwards biologically and some of us sitting in the room will likely see the next century…. so hang in there!

These are very important and defining times to be involved with the Metaverse and social computing, and it’s only going to get more interesting from here.