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.

Vivaty Update

I wanted to follow up on my last Vivaty post and mention that (as indicated by Pat at Vivaty) several improvements have been made in their latest release. There are now shared spaces that you can use as well as some gestures and other interactions. They even recently added virtual pets!

The most important release though is that of an authoring tool for scenes and objects. I have not tried it yet, but hope to soon. It looks like they have taken the appreciated route of using an external tool with a native .x3d format. This will make things highly portable and overall easier to create. (Are you following this SL? )

Another interesting note is that they are currently running a contest for developers with a top prize of $1000. I think it's a great way for them to promote the tool while also giving recognition to the talented modelers out there.

The Open Source Solution

I've been getting a lot of questions about what the 'best' or 'easiest to learn' 3d modeling program is. After further discussion, it usually turns out that the person really wants to know what the 'cheapest' or 'easiest to obtain' program is. My answers to these people usually come in the form of some sort of open source solution. I've been really surprised at how few people actually know about these solutions or even the open source concept in general.

From the Open Source Initiative homepage: Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Open source allows users to contribute to the development process by writing, reviewing, and optimizing source code. Non-developer users can also contribute by providing bug reports, reviews, or financial support. Everyone gets the advantage of a freely available product that often has less bugs, is easier to use, and has more of a support community than its commercial rivals.

Following are some of my favorite open source solutions. Give them a try and remember to contribute where you can!

3d Modeling/Animation

Blender - Blender Tutorials

K-3D - K-3D Tutorials

Raster Image Creation/Editing

GIMP - GIMP Windows Installer

Vector Image Creation/Editing

Inkscape

Office Tasks (word processing, accounting, etc.)

OpenOffice

Emerging Tech: VideoTrace

Creating great looking real-time ready models of complex objects is getting easier and easier.

Anton van den Hengel of the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies is leading the development of an amazing new process that allows you to easily create 3d models from video. The process - called 'VideoTrace' - debuted last year at SIGGRAPH and involves interactively tracing the desired object over several frames of video.

Check out a very cool demo video here or here.

Image processing algorithms have existed for years that attempt to automatically detect and generate 3d meshes from a set of images. Examples of successful implementations are found in medicine and geology, where data sets involve known components with little variation. The limiting factor in taking this idea to general use has primarily been the ambiguities (jitter, fade, artifacts, etc.) of an undefined visual source.

VideoTrace compensates for these shortcomings by providing an interface for the user to interactively trace the desired object in the video. These tracings give hints to the algorithms about what should be processed and (theoretically) remove the major ambiguities. A paper describing the technology can be found here.

A note on the ACVT VideoTrace page says that they are currently looking for support for commercial development. I sure hope they get it. Even though models of some small objects would still be easier to generate with a low-end 3d scanner, the applications for this technology on a large scale are huge. Think of a bridge between Google Streetwise and Google Earth - users could quickly trace the video of all the houses on their block and have it uploaded for use in Google Earth.... The possibilities are many!

ReViving Virtual Worlds pt. 2

After yesterday's foray into the Lively beta, I finally decided to swing back to the Vivaty private beta invite that had been sitting neglected in my inbox. To my surprise, they are now supporting IE6 as well as IE7. So, though I'd really like to see Firefox capabilities, at least I didn't have to upgrade...

Vivaty currently functions as a Facebook or AIM imbedded application. I decided to go the Facebook route. This integration ended up being great - at least on the setup side of things. The usual Facebook login also served as the Vivaty login, transferring all of my Facebook data to the application as well. This was great, as it provided for a quick entry into the app and my default scene already had some personal touches (profile pics, info, etc.).

The application loaded fairly quickly (< 1 minute) and had a graphical quality similar to SecondLife. The navigation was also reminiscent of SL, but without a 'fly' option and a little clunkier and less responsive. A small menu allows you to add to your scene from a library of pre-made objects. You can modify their size and texture, but that's about it. Avatar customization is also limited to selection from a library.

I found Vivaty to be very functional (with a few glitches - to be expected in a beta) and on par visually with the competition, but incredibly lonely! A shared virtual environment quickly loses it's appeal if there is no one to share it with. Instead of adopting a 'public spaces' policy like Lively or SL, Vivaty opts for a private 'invite-only' system. The only way to share your space with others, or visit someone else, is to invite people from your Facebook or AIM friend lists.

Ingenious marketing strategy or fatal flaw? It's a great idea to tap into a well established distribution network, but I think Vivaty is making a mistake by not facilitating some sort of public meeting spaces. I'm sure this makes the system easier to manage, but it also stops the flow of users who just want to try out the experience without getting to invested or subjecting their friends to unwanted invites.

In the end, I think the lack of social spaces puts the Vivaty beta a step below Lively. While Lively definitely needed some technical issues worked out, the experience was still engaging and available. Vivaty was interesting at first, but quickly became old without true object creation options or interaction. Perhaps the public release will open things up. If so, I will gladly add Vivaty to my regular list of virtual hangouts!

Lively Conversation

Last week Google jumped into the world of shared virtual environments with a beta release of 'Lively.' Lively is essentially a 3d chatroom where users can customize their avatar from one of a library of preset characters and create custom environments with furniture, pictures, etc.

As I was downloading the Lively web-applet (it runs completely within your browser) I found myself pretty excited, even after coming across some pretty bad reviews. Google has created some great applications in the last decade, especially involving 3d (Sketchup, GoogleEarth), so it seemed promising. But so far, I have to agree with the critics.


Right of the bat, the application seems to have a scaling issue. In any of the Lively 'rooms' with say, 10 or more people, the environment loaded incredibly slowly. In fact, in one case I left it running for 10 minutes and only managed a fifty-percent "Room Materializing" bar. The libraries of avatars and room items also had a long enough loading lag that I still haven't been able to explore them all.

As expected with user-generated content of this nature (see: SecondLife) there is already quite a bit of wading through advertising, spam, and adult content, though apparently Google is attempting to address it. Good luck!

It's tough to blast Lively too much as it is still a beta release. Hopefully Google will recognize these issues and make some improvements soon. Though it will never provide the flexibility and creativity of SecondLife, Lively could definitely become a popular hangout for chatters. The graphics are nice and have a 'youthful' quality to them. I also really enjoyed the navigation (when it worked). It reminded me of the pan feature from Google Maps - very fluid and intuitive.

All in all it was a disappointing launch that offers a glimpse of a good platform with many opportunities to become great. I'm ready for version 2.0!

ReViving Virtual Worlds

I recently received a beta-testing invitation from 'Vivaty,' a new player in the SecondLife dominated (and dragging) virtual worlds game. I'm not too familiar with the company, but based on a quick Googling, it seems to be well funded and has solid leadership. The most interesting buy-in for me at this point is their Facebook integration. If its solid, that could be a great boost for them and a neat add-in for us Facebookers.

The current roadblock to any real Vivaty appraisal by yours truly is the Internet Explorer 7.0 requirement. No Firefox or Mac support yet! I haven't had the desire to update my long neglected IE yet, but I will be sure to try out Vivaty when I do. Stay tuned for updates!

A Valuable 3D Resource

I thought I'd post a resource for anyone looking to improve their 3D modeling skills. The Ego Lounge over at Ego-Farms has a bunch of really great tutorials and comment threads with helpful tips and discussions. It's also a great place to get feedback on your work or help with a particular problem or technique.

Ego-Farms is run by Eric Maslowski, a great guy and ridiculously talented 3D artist. Take a look at his portfolio if you want something to aspire to!

A 3D World

In a couple of weeks (May 12th), international industry leaders and other 3D proponents and interested entities will meet in São Paulo, Brazil for what is being called the 'X3D Earth' initiative.

Web3d.org lists the purpose of the X3D Earth group as being: "to create an infrastructure of open and extensible standards to visualize in three dimension objects from real world and constructions of information in a geospatial referenced context." This infrastructure will presumably be based on X3D and has the somewhat lofty goal of compiling and archiving all available (public and government controlled) terrain, imagery, and cartography data.

While I'm all for the ideas behind this initiative (open and centralized access to spatial data), isn't this sort of re-inventing the wheel? I realize Google's data isn't exactly 'open and accessible,' but they seem to have had great success implementing an architecture that fits many of X3D Earth's goals and has been proven popular and successful with users. With Google Earth's large user base and ever-growing repository of geospatial referenced content, would a functional X3D Earth implementation be able to reach the critical mass of users needed to be successful?

Maybe someone over at Google will take notice - it would be great to see some sort of collaboration here. I think everyone would benefit from improved data access and standardization and we wouldn't have to watch the death of another well intentioned Web3D initiative!