I finally had a chance to wade through 70+ Comments in my Open Forum taking reader descriptions of their first hour experience in Second Life, synthesizing that down into something that could be represented in a pie chart. That necessarily involves a fair amount of interpretation, but in essence, I think the responses resolve into the four categories above. The majority experience was several varieties of negative (boredom, frustration, etc), even while most respondents also spent the initial time following the Lindens' official tutorials.
Given such an overwhelming negative experience, why did you stay? I also filtered that down into another chart (after the break):
Why did you stay? These results are just as striking, for almost none of you mention the Lindens' official orientation experience. Instead, the vast majority mention help from other Residents, while a significant percentage specifically mention Resident/3rd party sites that assisted them-- New Citizens Incorporated, The Shelter, the Ivory Tower of Prims, and The Electric Sheep Company's orientation for the CSI Experience. About as many cite an article, tutorial video, or other non-SL content that prepared them for the experience beforehand, or gave them specific goals or locations to aim for, such as Burning Life, or building. This carried them past the high learning curve.
Based on this admittedly limited, non-scientific sample, here's some tentative conclusions: the official, Linden-sponsored Orientation Island and first-hour experience as it exists is a detriment to retention, with no evidence that the tutorials are any particular help. Based on this data at least, here is my key takeaway: The community not the company helps the community grow.
What's your take?
I think your readers have nailed it, from my students' points of view. They HAD to stay, of course, and though I'm a LL Mentor and can go to the Orientation and Help Islands when I wish, I often was not there for many students' first hour.
By semester's end, a few refused to go back to SL for a required part of a final assignment. They lost a full letter-grade. Four of 24 students hated SL so badly that they refused to use it after midterm, even though they'd been given specific tasks and several resident-mentors and I were there to help.
Retention in SL from the class? After the semester, 2 or 3 of 24 log in from time to time. There's that 10% again....
Posted by: Ignatius Onomatopoeia | Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 04:07 PM
that seems to summarize everything. i hope LL can see this info and make the next steps based on this.
Posted by: Isadora Fiddlesticks | Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 04:19 PM
Surprising to see that the "Resident-run/3rd party Orientation Site" was the lowest of the four. I do wonder how many of those "Friendly Residents" were met at places such as NCI or the Shelter.
Posted by: Alex Lapointe | Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 04:41 PM
Perhaps you should break it down into more a multiple choice survey. I have found that you tend to get a lot of soft data, interpretations and feelings, when you are doing qualitative research and not much in the way of hard data. If you are looking for numbers try surveys. Perhaps have some type of explanation of the choices. Hmm...sorry I took a social science writing/research class, because I'm an anthro major in college.
Posted by: Adia Clary | Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 11:05 PM
"The community not the company helps the community grow."
Hang that on a wall in San Francisco. Or spraypaint it on the doors. Or burn it into the carpet at the entrance. Lest they do not forget what all those pesky, complaining, nasty customers are doing for them, free of charge.
Posted by: Rob | Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 11:23 PM
as far as making it multiple choice, i see my wordy answer fit neatly into two condensed answers.
[Avatar Customization]
[Met Friends/Friendly Residents Who Helped]
If those had been among a multiple-choice survey, I would have selected them. The only thing really reduced from the "what made you stay" answer was that I used the phrase, "like minded", and I feel strongly about the significance of that. I didn't just stumble upon friendly people; I considered what people potentially friendly to me would probably call themselves, and searched for that term in the in-world search. I wouldn't have found them otherwise. That didn't make it to the summarized version.
Nice job with the summary; I imagine it was a lot of work.
Posted by: Adz Childs | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 04:50 AM
Will reiterate the observation that multiple choice questions are more conducive to quantifiable data for future analysis of this type...As far as personal experience goes, I found a mentor relatively soon and found her most helpul and generous. Most everything else I have learned about SL is through targeted search, in world friendship...(grace), or tutorials and blogs. Thanks for the study. Well thought out.
Posted by: Traeger Jawitz | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 10:01 AM
Thanks! Multiple choice is definitely easier, but then, the questions bias the answers. Then again, open questions/answers as Adz points out necessarily requires some interpretation that might not be accurate.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 10:26 AM
Perhaps the low retention is partly because there is so much to do In SL, it's impossible to see or even conceive of everything in that all important first hour.
As far as I can remember, the Linden Labs Orientation seemed to be designed to teach you how to move and basically interact with the world. It wasn't designed to show the vast array of possibilities. After all, most people won't come into the world wanting to write complex scripts straight off, or build the tallest tower with the most intricate details.
Having said this, I think Linden Labs made tutorials for more specific topics should be available for anyone who wants them. Theoretically at least, they've built the systems so they should know how to use them. Or maybe they've decided not to since residents have already done such a good job creating their own tutorials. Maybe they're sticking to SL's Tag line. 'Your World. Your Imagination.'
Posted by: Ti Dinzeo | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 10:31 AM
It would be interesting to break down those experiences by age of avatar - or conversely, birth date. When I started, there were no Mentors, and Help Island was pretty much a walking our. After that, it was off to the Mainland. I was completely overwhelmed by the open-endedness of SL (and to some degree, the lack of context).
Posted by: Shinji | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 02:01 PM
I want to point out something about "meeting new people". I am a Shelter volunteer, and I remember that a while back, The Shelter and a few other places became the first locations that people automatically transported to after Orientation Island. I wonder if a lot of people who stayed created accounts at that time, because it allowed a lot of newbies to meet helpful people right off the bat instead of the spammers you sometimes get.
Posted by: Neptune Rebel | Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 07:55 AM