What's Good, Bad, and Ugly About Second Life Viewer 2.0

Programmer Zha Ewry has a painstakingly detailed review of SL viewer 2, and I hope the Lindens are taking notes. Sample:

Make the web metaphor meaningful Web browsers have a consistent pattern for links, hover tips and context menus. They have a consistent pattern for what you can drop/drag and where and why. The client ought to look at best practices in the major clients and follow them. Let people drag folders of bookmarks to the favorites bar. Make names and other elements real links, and make them behave that way.

Much, much more here.

Image credit: Zha's Flickr stream.

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

Linden Lab already flatly stated there will be no major changes in functionality. Take that any way you want but it looks to me like they don't care what anyone has to say about it. Judging from the rate of people leaving Linden Lab I would say Linden Lab has issues.

[Valiant Westland]

Zha did a great job with this review. This is the type of feedback every good BETA Manager dreams of!

I am one of the people who is so excited by the promise of Shared Media, I have possibly been too lenient in my objective evaluation of the new UI. As I read Zha's analysis I found myself nodding in agreement with many of her points.

Since the release of the new viewer, I have been pleased with the Lab’s efforts to field questions, listen to user input and make changes that the community identified as serious functionality / security concerns. I hope they continue to accept feedback like this revue and the release candidate of the V2.x client offers all the functionality and usability we need.