Dusan Writer offers a sensational bit of news:

Mark Kingdon announced that an outside design firm is hard at work on a new, user-friendly viewer for Second Life.

I’ve read Kingdon’s post, and I’m afraid Dusan misread it and jumped to the entirely wrong conclusion. Here’s what Kingdon actually wrote (emphasis mine):

Shortly after I started, we kicked off a project to reinvent what we call the “first hour experience” (our web experience, the viewer, and the way we acclimate and acculturate users inworld) for new users. We’ve made great progress and will be working with an award-winning interactive design firm to help us complete the reinvention and bring it to life. Yes, we are creating a viewer that is new user friendly! Stay tuned for updates.

That reads pretty clearly to me: they are working on a viewer that is friendly to new users, not a new viewer that is friendly to users. I suppose you could read some meaning into “reinvention” and “creating”, but I don’t see any indication that he means anything other than the renovations already in progress to make the existing viewer more friendly to new users.

Improving new users experience has been a recurring theme at Resident Experience (Rx) office hours, and is clearly one of LL’s primary obsessions. And as it happens, Linden Lab contracted Vectorform, an award-winning interactive design firm, for what is known as the Landmarks & Navigation project. This is no great secret. Vectorform attended the Rx office hours on April 17 & 24 to gather information, and then presented the L&N project concept on May 29. There were also emails to the SLDev mailing list in April and May, around the same time as the office hours. The L&N project has been underway since then, and is now nearing completion (as much has been said at Rx office hours in recent weeks).

So, sorry to burst any bubbles, but unless LL contracted another award-winning interactive design firm to work in secret on a whole new viewer, and the timing of that project just happened to coincide exactly with the timing of the Landmarks & Navigation project… well, I’ll let you jump to your own conclusion.

Here’s an updated version of an oldie but a goodie. Back in January 2007, I found out how to disable (on your computer only) the SL typing sound — the loud, annoying click-clack-clack sound that plays whenever you or anyone around you starts typing something into chat.

It has been nice and peaceful since then. But tonight, while testing the latest build of Imprudence, I heard it for the first time in 21 months (since my regular SL settings weren’t loaded). Blech! What a racket. I went to disable it, but then I thought of something better: I could replace it with a nicer sound. That way I’d still have an audible indicator of when someone was typing (something I realize I had been missing).

After rummaging around in my inventory a bit to find an appropriate sound, I settled on a freebie cricket chirp sound. It was full perm, so I grabbed the asset UUID: b3831ff2-a197-62df-34f7-a83be592c1da

So, I enabled the Advanced menu (Ctrl+Alt+D, or Cmd+Alt+D for you Mac-types), opened up Advanced > Debug Settings, typed in UISndTyping, then pasted in b3831ff2-a197-62df-34f7-a83be592c1da in the box at the bottom, replacing the UUID that was there. Close up Debug Settings and… voila! Now instead of clacking on a keyboard, everybody chirps like a cricket when they start typing!

Of course, if crickets aren’t your thing, you can use any sound at all, as long as you have the UUID for it. You can get that by right clicking on it and selecting Copy Asset UUID — but only if you have full permissions on the item.

So, enjoy your crickets etc.! If you find a free sound that you like even better than crickets, leave a comment with the UUID or link to where it can be downloaded so I can try it out. (No illegal rips, please!)

Tateru Nino poses an intriguing question about why disabled users often become quite attached and identify with their avatars, more so than able-bodied people do:

To many such physically impaired users, the body is no more nor less a tool than an online avatar, and the latter (despite lag, occasional inventory loss, network problems and all the other hurly-burly of a virtual environment) is the more reliable, expressive and liberating, allowing more ability to contribute, work, play and socialize.

Why then, do the able-bodied among us tend to see so much more distinction between our bodies in the physical world and our digital representations? Is that distinction merely an artificial one, a handicap brought about by our able-bodied perspective?

I suspect it’s a matter of the strength of the connection between thought, action, results, and feedback.

For a perfectly able-bodied person, the mind directs the body smoothly, precisely, and effortlessly. Thought easily translates into action, and the feedback — sensory input confirming the results — reinforces the mind-body connection. As a result, your body starts to feel like part of your “self”, rather than an external thing.

But for an able-bodied person using an awkward tool or interface, the translation from thought to action is not nearly so effortless, the feedback is not as rewarding, and thus the connection is not as strong. As a result, the person feels less in control, and more conscious of manipulating an unwilling external object.

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As posted on the Imprudence blog:

We’ll be having a casual discussion in Second Life tomorrow at 1PM, and anyone is welcome to attend. The topic will be ways to improve the SL user interface and usability. Lex Neva has kindly let us use her new plot of land in Hippotropolis for the chat. Thanks, Lex!

• Topic: User interface, usability, accessibility, etc.
• When: September 16 at 1PM SLT
• Where: Hippotropolis (SLURL)

It should be a fun chat, kicking back and talking about how we can make SL better. I hope some of you will drop in!

I’ve made a post about this already over at the Imprudence blog, but I wanted to post a reminder that I will be overthrowing Resident Experience office hours tomorrow to force my hateful rhetoric down your throats.

The topic will be Imprudence, my latest jihad against common sense and the will of the masses. My henchman and I will be available to answer questions and talk about my master plans to remove everything useful from SL and impose my own brand of horribly crippled (yet oh-so-pretty) software upon you all. Whom I despise.

Where: Benjamin Linden’s office in Second Life.
When: Thursday, September 11, 3-4 PM PDT

It should be fun; I hope to see you there!

(P.S. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)