[opensource-dev] opensource-dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 26

[Daniel]

  @ Henri - Indeed, it was the lack of interest in completing a User's 
Manual for the viewer that caused me to look to other pastures.  This is 
after 6 years of development, you still had not documented your 
product.  Myself and several other people wrote most of a manual 
(http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User%27s_Manual), and to date no Linden 
has contributed in any significant way to filling in the holes.  I got 
discouraged and looked elsewhere, and found a company that actually 
listens to it's users, content creators, and landowners.  Their user 
client may reach what I consider beta status in the next release in the 
next few weeks, or if not then, the one after that, so yes, things might 
change soon.

On the subject of users knowledge, the average number of residents 
online outnumbers  the average number of Lindens online by 1000 to 1.  
There is a vast repository of experience there, which should be 
leveraged.  Someone commented that polls of hundreds to about 1000 users 
is not the majority of SL population.  Polls are valid to within a few 
percent at that scale if they are a representative sample of the 
population.  Self-selected polls like the ones mentioned don't generate 
a random sample, but a login poll can do that:

Ask residents regularly on login "What viewer are you using, what do you 
like most, what do you like least, what would you add or change?"  Then 
adjust the response numbers to match the total resident population 
demographics.  Getting constant feedback in this way will do two 
things.  Get you the actual data on what residents want, and also give 
them the feeling that you are listening.  Getting the results back to OS 
Devs will help point us at what needs doing.

The only specific technical recommendation I can make is to have a 
"basic" default UI with the most commonly used menus and buttons, and 
then a Preferences tab to activate sets of added menus/buttons/windows 
for various uses: building, land management, etc.  That way you have a 
single code base, but "versions" that are optimized for different 
purposes.  Oh, and finish the damn User's Manual and put a link to it in 
the registration email.  Maybe you will retain more new players that way 
now that you are doing away with the Orientation Islands.  Writing the 
code is only part of the job.  Telling people how to use it is just as 
important.
> From: Henri Beauchamp<sldev at free.fr>
> This is this kind of extremely arrogant arguments that LL keeps showing
> up year after year, and that discourage people from helping and encourage
> then to search elsewhere for greener pastures...
>
> You (LL) are lucky that you do not yet have direct competitors, since
> the fact there is (for now), no other "pasture" preserves you from a
> massive mass emigration. But things might change, and quicker than you
> might expect...

> We, however, have an HUGE advantage on you, Lindens: we are *using* SL,be it for building, scripting, roleplaying (either freeform RP or combat RP, which are two different matters), running businesses, exploring, communicating, etc... And by USING SL, we KNOW what we NEED in the viewer.
> I doubt very much the people behind the viewer 2 UI desing ever actually used SL like we do !
>
>

> From: Ann Otoole<missannotoole at yahoo.com>
>
> How about soliciting requirements from us customers and then letting us
> customers prioritize them and then you go through the process of explaining why
> you will or will not implement. Maybe there is a bastion of software methodology
> expertise amongst us customers and we could organize a requirements system for
> you.