Review: ExitReality

I recently came across another newcomer to the web-based virtual worlds market: ExitReality.

At face value, ExitReality functions similarly to all of the others out there (SL, Vivaty, Lively, IMVU, etc.). You register (free), login, and get a customizable avatar dropped into a social 'lounge' area where other users also congregate. When I first tried the Beta environment out, there were about 10 other users. Pretty small, but they seem to be fairly new and still growing.

The unique thing about ExitReality is that it is based around the idea of navigating an actual 3d web. It's a concept that has been tried many times before, but never really caught on. In the 'ExitReality Plaza' the commercial aspects of this are pretty in your face. Each major building or structure in the environment is associated with some sort of business interest. There's a Carl's Jr, Wall Street Journal, and ESPN buildings, a Match.com ice cream truck (?) and many others. And as far as I can tell, these commercial interests are all just facades. I would expect to be able to go into the buildings and find related content, but the only further action is to click on their signs and be taken to their regular 2d site.

It's an interesting idea, but I still don't see it gaining mass market appeal. So far, it seems to just be a 3d chat with a whole lot of advertisements. There's just not a whole lot to do. The one advantage this site has over others is load time. It was definitely quicker than the others I've reviewed, but other important aspects - navigation, visual quality, content - all seemed to be lacking. If they mature in at least one of these areas, I'd consider them a contender due to their novelty but right now, they have a ways to go.

The other interesting aspect of this site is their claim to 'View any website in 3d'. I tried our site and got a pretty sad result. The algorithm they are using seems to just grab the graphics from your screen and paste them on various objects in an environment. They also seem to incorporate the site color scheme into the overall asthetic. The '3d' nformationdesign.com turned out to be one big wall with a screen shot of the homepage and then a 'field' of linked graphics that looked like flags on poles. It was pretty disappointing. I think this 'view any page in 3d' concept is probably their best selling point, but the algorithm needs some major improvements. Maybe some simple image processing to guess at what some of the pictures are, so they can be turned into actual 3d representations? How about doors or passages to take you to other rooms (pages) of the site instead of these link 'flags'? There are a lot of options here.

I'm glad to see more businesses take a stab at this sort of thing, but I think the market is getting to the point where the application needs to be a little more mature to catch on.


Did I miss something? Let me know.

Ford Lake Data Visualization

N Formation Design is happy to announce the completion of a great 3D data visualization in cooperation with Dr. John Lehman of the University of Michigan. This project incorporates spatial data gathered by Dr. Lehman via sensors in Ford Lake (Ypsilanti Twp, MI) with a 3D model of the actual bathymetry (underwater shape) of the lake.

This visualization will allow community members to get a better understanding of what is happening inside Ford Lake and aid researchers like Dr. Lehman in finding patterns and relationships in the lake data.

From the site:

"This 3D visualization shows hourly lake data, updated on a regular basis, for wind speed and direction as well as temperature, oxygen, and turbulence at different depths. The information is combined with a 3D model of the lake bathymetry to produce an accurate view of spatial and temporal patterns."

Screenshot:

Another version of the application focuses on a historical data set spanning three years that includes additional data on algal pigments and water transparency.

Screenshot #2:

Try these interactive visualizations out for yourself by going to www.umich.edu/~hrstudy and clicking on 'Data Animation' or 'Historical Data Animation.'

Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!

What is VR?

The big news of a couple days ago was the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider (or 'LHC') at CERN. This is awesome to us science-minded folks and should provided for some great advances in physics once they actually start smashing particles together.

But I digress. The actual reason a brought that up was a neat link that came up in my brief research on the subject. It's a set of 360 panoramic photos of the LHC by self-described 'VR Photographer' Peter McCready. An early Quicktime-based implementation of this technology was called QTVR and there is even an International Virtual Reality Photographers Association.

This technology and others like it are very cool, but should they really have the name 'VR' attached to them? Those of us who come from the world of interactive 3d graphics tend to say no, but it seems that the term has been diluted enough that the general public is accepting of all sorts of interpretations.

Sébastien "Cb" Kuntz at A VR Geek Blog has an interesting post on just this topic. He points out that the traditional understanding of what virtual reality is comes down to three things: realtime rendering, interaction, and immersion. Can a panoramic photograph really provide these things? Perhaps interaction (to a degree), but the others are surely not there...

Sébastien comes to the same conclusion that I did years ago when confronted with this same problem. We can't really hope to change the perceptions of the general public when it comes to these peripheral technologies, so we need to change our own vernacular to fit the bill. This why at N Formation Design we use terms like 'immersive', 'semi-immersive', and 'web-based' along with virtual reality to distinuish our own definitions of these technolgies.

Maybe photographer will start calling themselves Panoramic VR Photographers? Probably not :)

Engaging User Experiences (Pt. 2)

In this Web 2.0 world, users are beginning to have an expectation of involvement in their web experiences. The second part of this article deals with possible ways to fill this need.

There are many techniques and technologies that can be used to create engaging user experiences. N Formation Design believes that the best and most promising solution is interactive (or "rich") media.

Interactive media includes all web applications with rich visual content and interactive capabilities that expand beyond the traditional scrolling, typing, and button-clicking.

Overcoming Stigma
Interactive media has been around for nearly as long as the web but has only recently become a reasonable option for the business community. Even so, it has yet to gain the critical mass needed to become a standard due to the strong stigma that lingers from past failures.

1. Download Times:
As stated in part one of this article, the average user will leave your site if the pageload time exceeds 8-10 seconds. The size of rich media applications made this standard nearly impossible to reach in the days of dial-up modems. Luckily broadband penetration has now reached 90.49% at home and 96.47% at work (June 2008), so this has more or less become a non-issue for most businesses' target audiences.

2. Plug-in Panic:
Most (if not all) interactive media applications require a browser plug-in to function. In the past, many web-users were understandably hesitant about downloading any unknown content, let alone installing applications that they may or may not know the function of.

These days, most interactive content is based on the Flash or Java platforms. A recent market study commissioned by Adobe showed that Flash and Java enjoy 99% and 85% coverage rates of Internet enabled desktops in mature markets. There seems to be no more justification for worrying about plug-in downloads, most users already have them installed! As a side note, these coverage rates fall to 45%-65% for video plug-ins - a technology that seems to have already become commonplace.

Virtual Tours
A great type of engaging user experience that incorporates interactive media is the virtual tour. Virtual tour probably brings to mind real estate - sets of pictures or 360 degree views of a location. This is one type of tour, but this concept can also be used for products, services, or even ideas.

The main idea is to let the user explore all of the parts, options, and nuances of product/service at their own pace. This allows them to get just the information they need without losing interest or attention. An example of this could be providing the user with an interactive 3D model of a product. This way the user can turn the product any direction to see the features that they are particularly interested in.

Configurators
Another engaging application is the configurator. This type of application allows users to configure a product or service specifically to their needs or to mix and match features and compare the results. To continue the product example used earlier, users might be given the option to pick a particular color or add-on and then view their own customized version in 3D.

Configurators also provide a marketing bonus in that they allow you to capture data on the most popular configurations and options. This data can then be used for production, print, or other marketing purposes.

Other Solutions
If you're still not sold on the powers of rich media, there are plenty of other options available that create engaging experiences. A couple of my favorites are user forums and user created content. They both allow users to 'belong' to an environment surrounding your product or topic. Forums allow for creation of community while user created content provides a sense of ownership with your site. A specific technique that has become more popular lately incentivizes contribution by holding contests for users to provide certain pieces of content.

The Bottom Line
We can remain passive no more! Businesses need to embrace the culture of interaction if they hope to engage potential customers and keep up with the pace of online competition. Interactive media provides the means and 'wow-factor' that is necessary to get the job done.

Engaging User Experiences (Pt. 1)

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to give a talk at a local marketing-focused lunch group. My topic was 'Engaging User Experiences' - what they are, and a few ideas on how to make them. It went over pretty well, so I thought I'd note some of the main points here.

Creating engaging user experiences is all about grabbing the user's attention and then keeping their interest. These are the common first steps to making a sale. Whether it's the sale of a product or the sale of an idea, they are still important.

Some basics:

Attention

• Avoid long page load times. Users will leave if the wait exceeds 8-10 seconds.
• Test, test, test and test some more with your target user group. This is the easiest way to find common annoyances and turn-offs.
• Eye tracking studies show that users will ignore anything that looks like a banner, whether it actually is or not ("Banner Blindness"). Keep this in mind when designing graphics.
  

Interest

• Provide users with "information scent", i.e. where should they click to get the information they are looking for. For instance, titling a link "Click here for more information!" provides very little information scent to the user. Something more specific, like "Click here for pricing details" will draw more clicks to the link and create a higher likelihood of customer satisfaction (or conversion) for that page content.
• Use appropriate levels of complexity. That is, simplify the user's experience at initial use (landing page) and then add and adapt at deeper engagement levels.
• Provide a user-driven experience. The easiest way to keep a user's interest is to let them decide what they want to see and when instead of inundating them with potentially useless or off-putting information.

In the next post, I'll discuss Rich Media as a solution to creating a new and fresh engaging user experience o the web.