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
.
Entry Five: Roy Cassini
Roy’s full submission was posted on Slideshare
.
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.
This is cool, Dusan. Thanks for thinking of and implementing a way to pry a crack in the door to get some good ideas.
Judging entries is one thing, and I know that is important to connect to the motivational prize, but i wonder about another step that asks how to cherry-pick from elements of the entries to create an uber/gestalt design. I see some that have different ideas for overall aesthetics/skin, then functions, like inventory, communication, movement, editing, and so forth… so if the judging was also at the various element levels, those winners could be migrated into the overall design. meh? or no-meh?
For others, I’ve been told there have been some problems with some of the images in the post and with the Slideshare presentation. I can’t seem to replicate some of those errors but if there are problems first, check out the Slideshare site directly and second maybe drop a note so I can try to track down what’s causing it.
As far as uber designs, feels to me like a little follow-up mash-up might be in order.
Hmm kinda small to look at the details in those pictures. Oh well. Roy Cassini’s look interesting.
Oh and thank you for letting me in.
Dusan, you can place the link for the picture here for the full size.
Hey Nacon – and thanks, yeah it was tricky to “fit to scale” and so on. Links to each of the entries is listed alongside, and sorry for not adding a link to the full-sized version!
First, reminder that I’ve also got these up on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13768013@N05/sets/72157602066532186/
And second, here’s the link to Nacon’s entry:
http://www.blueforgefire.net//vincent/artworks/UI-Design.jpg
As is usual for me, I’ve written a blog entry that’s far too long for a comment, so you can find it at http://eloisepasteur.net/blog/index.php?/archives/165-Second-Life-Interface-design-contest.html
Here’s hoping someone at Linden Lab sits up and takes notice, there are a LOT of great ideas and principles in this set.
I tried to update the PDF on my blog with a revised version (the contents are unchanged, but the typo to text ratio is mercifully lower. The old version made em wince each time I looked at it). Unluckily, I managed to mess up the link while I did, thanks to a fabulous joint effort with wordpress.com’s borked file manager. Anyway, the long and short of it is the entry is now located here. Sorry.
Thanks Rheta – updated the post as well.
What an impressive collection of finalists. Looking thru them, I have to agree with Pias to a degree. A “dream design” could take the best overall interface and add the best functionality concepts from other designs. My vote goes to Rheta for an overall design and functionality concept – clean, powerful and purposeful. I also love that its noobie intuitive yet not strictly a noobie design – a concept clearly learned from Apple’s philosophy that even powerful applications can be intuitive.
However, concepts like buttons that initially take you thru their own tutorial, WORN and FAVORITES tabs in inventory, and likely a host of other gems could cleanly be integrated into Rheta’s (or any!) design, making a good idea truly revolutionary.
And Dusan… If LL doesn’t pick this up, any chance that it could get designed by someone and be an optional client for purchase. I know that kind of defeats the purpose of being noob-friendly if its an interface you have to buy. However, multitudes of devoted SL users would gladly pay to have an interface like the ones you’ve gathered here. And that, perhaps, would send the strongest message of all to LL:)
Thanks for your vision, Dusan, and for putting your $ where your mouth is.
-Night
http://nightmorrisey/blogspot.com
[...] Dusan Writer’s Metaverse » Interface Design Contest Finalists – [...]
[...] they know well – the Second Life user interface and its many, um, features. The quality of the entries was incredible. Visit my previous post where you can link through to the full submissions, or for a [...]
Without actually reading anything, and from just looking at the pictures yet (first impression) – I think 3, 4 and 5 pop out the most to me as UIs I’d be glad to work with.
Now I’ll get to reading all this text and information.
[...] night, each of five finalists presented their concepts to a panel of judges and then participated in a Q&A session. (I should [...]
Second Life interface redesign…
As I’ve previously commented, there’s been a competition about redesigning the Second Life interface that is, in fact still running at the moment.
I was too busy, or perhaps too lazy, to actually enter, but I’ve had a think about what I’d like.
…
[...] is crucial from the very first hours in Second Life. The post by Prokofy Neva is a reaction on the Design Contest one finds at Dusan Writer’s Metaverse. Neva asked newbies about obstacles and the user [...]
[...] a winner from the entries to the User Interface design contest was a bit like choosing your favorite color: it’s not that there’s a wrong choice, [...]
Great designs… But may I bring to your attention that also it is very important that all Windows conform to Windows conventions i.o.w. that they can (in windowwed mode) be dragged outside of the min window and to a Second monitor…
Then all menu’s lists, maps, do not clutter the main screen anymore.
Pls support JIRA entry VWR-467 thatpropagates this…
[...] The entries from all the participating finalists [...]
[...] Open Source But here’s the thing: through the UI contest, I was privileged to witness the talent of the Second Life community. I was able to participate in a process of listening to Residents talk [...]
[...] had a fascination with interfaces – not just graphical interfaces, how to make them more intuitive, but also the devices that we use. I’m increasingly convinced that there are two significant [...]
[...] will allow easier integration of plug & play features and tools (very similar to Rheta’s winning UI entry, above). Currently, the SL viewer runs off of code that’s a big amorphous mess. By modularizing the [...]
[...] To my great surprise, I made it into the final selection, among such illustrious names as Jacek Antonelli, Damien Fate, McCabe Maxsted and Rick van der Wal [...]
[...] Now, I just thought I’d pop up a screen shot of the winning entry from the UI contest that I held some time ago, the winner of which was Rheta Shan who is no longer with us. I’m not saying there are similarities, but it’s interesting to look back on the approaches the contestants took (read the full post here). [...]
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
[...] Dusan Writer will act as host for this episode, while Robert Bloomfield will field questions from the audience. Dusan Writer has written extensively about Second Life’s UI, and sponsored a UI design competition two years ago. [...]