Can High Fidelity Create a Fun Virtual Shopping Experience Where SL Fell Short?

I don't know if Liv Erickson, Engineering Team Lead for High Fidelity, has ever tried shopping for virtual items in Second Life, HiFi's predecessor, but she is definitely designing a better approach. She just published a pretty fascinating (if code-heavy) post on building the virtual shopping experience for High Fidelity. So far, it seems far more seamless and enjoyable than SL:

We decided to focus on a store that created wearable objects as avatar entities, giving us flexibility to add scripted behaviors down the road to objects that could be part of an outfit or avatar, and enable users to have the flexibility to interact with the items once purchased while remaining in VR. Today’s avatar store consists of a set of store and trial entities, which are spawned as avatar entities after purchasing.

It's a miracle that Second Life has such a robust shopping economy, considering the amount of pain it forces on shoppers. (Buy item -- find item in inventory -- unpack item -- place on avatar -- adjust in the editor - scream loudly when it still doesn't fit -- etc.) A truly intuitive shopping experience connected to High Fidelity's VR-centric approach would go a long way to helping it become a consumer product.

Comments

[Willow Dion]

Yes that is sure a description of shopping SL just add more screaming or goto the SL marketplace and scream some more.:(

[Oobleck]

Great read. Very insightful principles that if SL had incorporated over the past few years the new user would be leaps and bounds ahead of understanding the process and the fun involved with shopping and styling an avatar.

[Amanda]

The biggest problem with shopping is SL is how fractured it's become with all the different mesh bodies which need different sizes to fit. I use the Maitreya body not because I like it more than some of the others but because it's easier to shop for.

[madeline blackbart]

I have the same issue, Amanda. TBH the Maitreya body is my least favorite body. I end up owning 3 different brand bodies and having to just wear the body that looks best and fits the outfit I'm wearing that day which is a pain. I sincerely wish LL would just update the default avatar itself to something that looks nice and as high or higher customizability as the current default. I mean that avatar is so outdated.