Problem Space
Second Life has experienced a significant amount of growth, but within the 8.7 million registered members, only about 60,000 are active users.[1] This low rate of return reveals a need to understand the user experience in Second Life. We, a team of five Masters of Human Computer Interaction students at Carnegie Mellon University, are working with our Linden Lab correspondents to understand Second Life, focusing on three main areas: how users discover activities in which to participate, how users socialize with each other in a virtual community, and how the identity of a user is created and expressed in a virtual community.
Process
Between January and May of 2008, we conducted background and user research to understand the current trends of social networks and virtual worlds in general, and to identify current trends in Second Life. Throughout May, June, and July of 2008, we iterated through several designs of the Resident Recommendations system based on user feedback.
Our research and design culminated in demonstrations of the system, as well as a report detailing the rationale and functionality of the system, all of which can be found in the deliverables section.