My friends at Ill Clan just sent me the news that Linden Lab has unveiled a totally revamped orientation experience for new uses of the Second Life virtual world. Statistics have shown the the overwhelming majority of new registrants log-in once and then don't return to Second Life, presumably because the interface was too hard to learn or they didn't find anything worth coming back for.
The new orientation experience, produced by the Ill Clan, is designed to make it more pleasurable and easy to manage for the non-techie. This includes the integration of the 2.0 Viewer, more starter avatars to choose from, an improved "Welcome Island" and a whole new "Discovery" island for finding out about all the great stuff that is in Second Life.
“Navigating your avatar in virtual worlds will soon be as commonplace as
using social applications and sending emails,” says Kerria Seabrooke,
the Lead Designer on the project. “Our focus was on designing a
universal interactive space that utilized spatiality, light play,
textures, sounds and graphics to create an environment that impacts the
interrelationship between fun and learning.”
Knowing all the great work that Ill Clan has done in the past using Second Life, I think this effort has a high likelihood of success. I'm not a new user, though. So I can't evaluate it personally.
Any new users want to share their experiences of the new orientation?