[sldev] Voice

[Soft Linden]

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On 7/31/07, Second Life <sl at phoca.com> wrote:
> Soft,
>
> Thanks for replying to this thread.
>
> Believe me it is not merely resistance to change. There is a fatal flaw in
> the design as it sits that should be corrected.
>
> There are many minor issues with the chatterbox but one stands out above all
> the rest. I have been using the FL client for about 80% of my SLing, 8 hours
> a day for the last two months. And on the occasions when I go back to the
> standard client it is a RELIEF.
>
> I have taken several snapshots to try to illustrate the problem and it all
> stems from having a large number of :friends and trying to deal with several
> IMs at once where the chatter box is completely deficient in usability.
>
> Image 1: My normal, every day, always open window set. History and IM with
> enough space for 8-9 IMs before scrolling sets in and then I can enlarge it
> quite a bit sideways without using up any more real usable screen
> real-estate (eating up the mini map of course).
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Current.jpg
>
> Image 2: Now, when I want to check on the friends list, it is a simple click
> away, click on, browse the entire list of "on-line" friends without even
> scrolling, click off when done. Extremely fast and efficient. And even when
> I want to leave it open to check on things real-time It's still relatively
> compact and out of the way, and I can see it and my IM windows at the same
> time. This is unusual but happens sometimes, nice to have that option.
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Current-WithFriendsList.jpg
>
> Image 3: Chatterbox, trying to maintain the same setup as I normally use in
> image 1. Note that it is immediately and uselessly larger than it needs to
> be for IMs as compared to before. Why? because of the friends list that is
> wedged in there. Now look at even trying to use the friends list, I can only
> see 4.5 names at a time. I've never used the scroll wheel so much in SL as
> trying to look up and down my friends list in this configuration :(
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-IMs.jpg
>
> Image 4: I tried this for a while, making the chatterbox more friends list
> friendly, but then you can only manage 2-3 IM windows before having to
> annoyingly scroll them, and the aspect ratio for the IMs is not best AND the
> friends list names are pretty scrunched.
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-FriendsList.jpg
>
> Image 5: And here is the meat of it, IF you have a lot of friends and don;t
> like constantly scrolling scrolling scrolling AND you want to manage 6-8-10
> IMs at once, here is what you have to have:
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-Both.jpg
>
> That is plainly ridiculous. Now go back and look at my image 1 and Image 2
> again, see what I mean by "relief"? And finally, these shots were taken on a
> 1920x1200 screen at a UI size of 0.90. How are people on 1024x768 screens
> going to take this? (Which BTW I use on the living room media computer while
> watching TV sometimes)
>
> It should be fairly plain what the problem is: The friends list and the IM
> window /demand/ opposite aspect ratios for best usage and having them
> attached like that makes one or the other very hard to use.
>
> The solution isn't that hard: Make the friends list detachable and put a
> button to show/hide it back on the button bar.
>
> As I said there are plenty of other smaller problems but if this ONE big
> backwards step were put right, then I think I and most everyone else I've
> talked too just might be able to "get used to it".
>
> Thank you for looking.
>
> Farallon Greyskin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Soft Linden" <soft at lindenlab.com>
> To: "Nicholaz Beresford" <nicholaz at blueflash.cc>
> Cc: "Second Life Developer Mailing List" <sldev at lists.secondlife.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 5:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [sldev] Voice
>
>
> > I've seen a lot of comments about the new chatterbox panel, mostly
> > negative. For me (and I think many other Lindens), it's hard to tell
> > how many of the comments are resistance to changing something so
> > fundamental and familiar, and how much is real usability breakage. I
> > know I get pretty attached to one way of doing things after being
> > exposed to it for so long.
> >
> > The design isn't set in stone, although what you see now will be,
> > roughly, what you see in the first release. Posting specific requests
> > and shortcomings as JIRAs will help a lot in evolving this into
> > something better-received, and many thanks to those of you who have
> > posted comments.
> >
> > The bHear team will be pushing to have the final source released at
> > the same time as, or just before, the official launch. If you've got
> > things you'd like to change yourselves, you might visit Benjamin
> > Linden's usability office hours to propose ideas in advance and to
> > highlight existing chatterbox JIRAs you want to act on, based on your
> > reactions to the First Look version. If we see patches that
> > specifically note that you already ran an implemented idea by
> > Benjamin, we should be able to bring them in pretty quickly.
> >
> >
> > On 7/28/07, Nicholaz Beresford <nicholaz at blueflash.cc> wrote:
> >>
> >> I just tried the voice first look for the first time
> >> today and read the blog post about a mandatory FL on
> >> Monday and integration in to the main viewer.
> >>
> >> Is there are roadmap for this (time-wise and in relation
> >> to the non-voice viewer)?
> >>
> >> Also, I'd like to know how much set in stone the
> >> communication center design is (in my personal opinion
> >> that dialog is quite underwhelming and will most likely
> >> cause a major uproar when it becomes mandatory for all).
> >>
> >>
> >> Nick
> >> --
> >> Second Life from the inside out:
> >> http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/
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