Applications and Tools, Business in Virtual Worlds, Collaboration, Second Life

Interface Design Contest Finalists

The interface design contest set out to solicit the creativity and expertise of the folks who know Second Life the best – its users. The quality of the submissions has been wonderful, inspiring, and has provided so many ideas for discussion that I’ve puzzled over how to best present them ahead of the presentation and panel discussion with the judges.

So first, thank you so much for your interest, your submissions, and your comments as we move towards judging!

While the contest set out to design a new “GUI”, the thought process was perhaps as important to many who entered as the proposed screens. For some, it was an issue of putting a great deal of thought into the menu structures, for others it was a radical simplification of the buttons and interface itself.

The judges will be, well, the judges. I’m thrilled that we have four perceptive thinkers who will judge the entries and I’m sure they won’t only come up with a winner, but with insight into the whys and hows. Ordinal Malaprop, Keystone Bouchard, Eristic Strangelove and Vint Falken will judge the contest.

To start, I’ve taken some time to compile the entries, which arrived by e-mail, jpeg, PowerPoint and PDF into something that I hope captures each of the submissions. Apologies if some of the slides are harder to read than others.

Images alone can be viewed on Flickr.

There are 5 finalists plus one entry which came in after the deadline but which I’m including because I think it’s a useful design for discussion – and again, the main point of the contest was to generate ideas and discussion about how to improve the SL interface towards improving retention.

Aside from the images and selections below, the following are quick links to the explanatory text or full submissions depending on the entry:

McCabe Maxsted Explanatory Google Doc
Rheta Shan Full Submission (PDF)
Jacek Antonelli Full Submission (Google doc)
Damien Fate PDFs part one, two and three.
Roy Cassini full submission (Slideshare)

Entry One: McCabe Maxsted

The full entry text for this design is here.


Entry Two: Rheta Shan

The following are just a few peeks at Rheta’s detailed submission which can be viewed in its entirety here.

Entry Three: Jacek Antonelli

Jacek’s full submission can be viewed as a Google doc.



Entry Four: Damien Fate

Again, these are a few selective screen shots. Damien’s full submission can be seen in three parts:

Bottom Bar.

Top Bar
Inventory


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Entry Five: Roy Cassini

Roy’s full submission was posted on Slideshare




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Late Entry: Vincent Nacon

Your comments are encourged. Questions welcome. Again, the main purpose of the contest was to facilitate discussion, opinion, and dialogue towards answering the question of how one piece of the “SL usability puzzle” might be solved. And join us in world for the presentations by the finalists to our esteemed judges.

Thanks again everyone – what an amazing display of how deep the talent runs in these, our second lives.

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