Presentation for PhD Course "internet Research: Methodologies & Challanges"

CO--CREATING "SECOND LIFE CO LIFE"" AN ANALYSIS OF COLLABORATIVE COCO-DESIGN PROCESSES OF INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS IN COMMUNITY--AUTHORED SOCIAL VIRTUAL WORLDS COMMUNITY

R. Ates G端rsimsek Roskilde University University,, CBIT

Co--creating Social Media and Virtual Worlds Co

Developing ICTs and visualization technologies

Introduction of a new virtual “space” where individuals construct collaborative communicative activities.

Emergence of global communication networks, Web 2.0 and Social Media

Blurring lines between content producers and media users

‘Passive Audience’ vs.

‘Creative Creative Audience Audience’

“User User--Generated Content” Content

Virtual Worlds as Collaborative Platforms for Creative Audience

Unlike MMORPGs, economy of Second Life depends almost completely on the creativity of its users.

Second Life is built on participation participation, community building and social creativity.

Residents collaboratively design, build and share virtual objects and spaces.

Designers in Second Life create more immersive and interactive virtual artifacts, environments and avatars by using the developing virtual world technologies, and increasing affordances for collaborative content creation.

Virtual economies are penetrating into ‘reallife’ markets. InIn-world economic behavior significantly resembles (and is affected by) “real-life” usage patterns.

Design as Communication: How Artifacts in Context Mediate Communication

Design: de+signare

Design:

“making something, distinguishing it by a sign, giving it significance, designating its relation to other things; owners, users, or gods.” (Krippendorff, 1998) “initiation of change in manmade things” which “starts with the supply of materials” and “ends with the evolutionary effects upon society at large” (Jones, 2009) “planning and patterning of any act towards a desired, foreseeable end” (Papanek, 1972)

“All All men are designers” designers because “design is the basic human activity” (Papanek, from Jones, 2009)

By nature, design is interdisciplinary interdisciplinary: occurring in various fields of arts and industries, and synthesizing information ranged from a range of disciplines (Walker, 2009)

Why is Design of Virtual Worlds is also an Architectural Problem?

Virtual worlds are “places places” which “accommodate human activities, such as navigation, interaction and communication”. (Bartle, 2004)

Designers of Second Life co co--design the world's content by building unique virtual artifacts (prims/objects, vehicles, furniture, costumes, textures, scripts, etc.).

They are also building networks of fellow designers, and potential visitors, creating a self-sustaining online economy driven by a self-sustaining online community. (Stalder, 2006; Castronova et. al., 2007) community

Designers (and their users/customers) share a persistent 3D virtual space, space in which they can collaborate on creating and modifying objects, testing and distributing their designs inside Second Life.

Design of virtual worlds requires collective organization of information and interactive artifacts within these virtual “places”, which makes it an architectural problem as well. (Bridges and Charitos, 1997; Benedikt, 2008)

Purpose & Research Questions

What methods do (professional) designers of Second Life employ to collaboratively coco-design immersive virtual spaces?

How do specific categories of Virtual World affordances on designers' communication, collaboration, design and 3D objectobjectbuilding affect the structure (and efficiency) of design processes of these environments?

Collaborative design processes, processes and their structures Affordances of Second Life that support the development of userdriven innovation Limitations of Second Life that hinder the development of userdriven innovation Areas of further development in collaborative design processes

Pilot Study 1. Design of “Metrotopia “Metrotopia””

Metrotopia is a virtual laboratory built in Second Life for a observation, teaching and design.

Participant design observation of Design and Research Teams’ collaborative activities, group interview with contributors

Second Life comprise affordances to object--based collaboration facilitate object and allows designers to develop context--specific design methods by context using related design resources (inspirational or material) situated within the virtual world (i.e., building 3D models, shopping for supplies, outsourcing design tasks).

Pilot Study 2. “Communication and Design in Virtual Worlds� Workshop and Focus Groups

During 3 weeks, 15 international students were lectured on semiotics, design and communication, and asked to design group projects in Second Life for representing their communicative messages in fictional contexts.

By observing students' collaborative design processes, it was aimed to understand the critical aspects of virtual collaboration. collaboration

Observation methods included: notes from the workshop, analysis of video recordings from the classroom & Second Life, online questionnaires (course reviews), focus group interviews with four project groups.

Pilot Study 2. “Communication and Design in Virtual Worlds� Workshop and Focus Groups

Initial Categories for Analysis of Collaborative Design Processes in Second Life

Perceived Challenges

Virtual worlds worlds research field field is (relatively) new, research focuses mostly on mechanics of collaborative design, or design of specific environments.

Theoretical framework needs to consist of various research fields, including communication, design, semiotics, human-computer interaction, social media and virtual worlds.

Design processes in real life have (relatively) theorized affordances affordances,, constraints and specializations. specializations Second Life has its unique affordances, limitations, physical rules, market conditions, production constraints, cost-benefit relations (…) for designers.

Who is a ”designer” in Second Life? What are the limits of sampling?

How can I find and select an appropriate collaborative design case case?

And how should I observe it? ☺