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Productivity and Satisfaction in Virtual Worlds
by by Timothy Everingham, NOCCC - November 03, 2001 at 00:53:57:
The computer simulator and game creators have now for decades been creating virtual worlds. In the last few years increasingly three dimensional(3D) worlds that are visually and interactively very realistic are being created. In their development of these worlds they have made discoveries about how human being interact with their environment, others, and computers. At the SIGGRAPH 2001 Conference in Los Angeles some of the developers of such virtual worlds shared some of their findings. These findings can help us better to achieve our goals in computer software development, training, and technical support and achieving a more productive and satisfied workforce.A basic principle is to concentrate on the details that the customer will notice. If a customer will not notice it, it will not lead to greater customer satisfaction and all you will have done is waste your resources. Developers of 3D video games do not put a lot of time in the details of high ceilings unless the player is expected to get close to the ceiling. They put more detail into objects on the floor and at eye level that their customers will notice. But to understand what your customers will notice, first you have to understand what is important to your customer and what is your customer's perspective. When inspecting a new ride at Disneyland, Walt Disney would frequently stoop down and look around. Someone asked him why he did that. He said that he was trying to get the perspective of the children who would visit the ride, customers who's reaction to the ride would have a significant effect on its success or failure. You should not rely only on observation to find out your customer's perspective and what your customer wants. Your customer may not show their perspective or wants from their behavior, possibly because their behavior has been forced upon them by the system they are using. Also your customer may not fully know what he wants, needs, or even what is possible to do that could solve his/her problem. This is why you need to do tests and interviews with customers. Remember Post It Notes potential were only found out when someone took a failed product(weak glue), added it to small pieces of paper, and distributed the combined new product around to some departments in 3M. Then they tried them out on some of their customers to get even better insights. In that testing they found there were uses for it that would produce great demand for the product and how to make it better before manufacturing began. Related to this is keeping things appropriate for your audience. Little kids may not understand or be scared by gross monsters, gore, or adult situations or elements. Things they can relate to such as playgrounds, cartoon characters, interacting with playmates, and simple games are things they can identify and gain greater satisfaction in interacting with. Another related issue is not letting perfectionists or premadonnas take over your projects. They will want to spend too much time on wasted detail or other things that are not so important or appropriate, causing delays in completing your project and decreased employee moral. These principles also apply to motivating employees. Concentrate on what your employees will notice and what is important to them to get the best results.
One principle is giving people too much detail can actually cause more problems than it solves. Researchers at the U.S. Naval War College, who develop impressive 3D computer simulators for all branches of the military, did an interesting experiment. They created a 3D immersive computer generated world of a section of an existing military base. They then took people who had never been to the military base and put them into the 3D simulated world using a virtual reality system. They were trained to walk around in the virtual military base and to visit only certain buildings and not others. After they were trained enough for them to be able to successfully do this task in the virtual world, they were taken to the real military base and asked to do what they had been trained to do in the virtual world in the real world. What they found is that if something had a detail in the virtual world that was off or had changed in the real world, the trainees had trouble identifying it. One of the most striking examples was a house that when the 3D world has created had a porch, but the porch had been removed prior to the trainees arriving on the real world site. A high proportion of the trainees did not identify it as one of the buildings they were suppose to visit, as they should have. What the research found was best are extremely rough 3D images of buildings like those you place on a Monopoly game board. This way it is the location within the base they learned as the most important key, which has the least chance of being off or changing; rather than the visual details of the building, which can have the most chance of being off or changing. That means when you are instructing others to do a task; focus on the most important details, especially those that are less susceptible to change. Giving too many details, especially those that could change due to circumstances, could just confuse those you are trying to instruct. That does not mean that you should not alert people to potential changes that could affect the way the task is to be performed and to adapt to them, but unnecessary detail that is not critical and is subject to change should not be emphasized. This may mean having too much detail in computer operating systems and computer applications could hinder training in those operating systems and applications. This could require more training time and additional detail in training materials, which could add to training costs. It also may mean additional technical support costs. Also by adding detail you could add to the problem of information overload in a person or office, which could degrade the efficiency of your or your customers' office. You want detail, but be sure it is significant to your customers and will not create additional problems.
Another is that when you want someone to do something it is best to hold out a carrot than a stick, especially if you can convince the person to do something and not have the person realize they are being manipulated into it. Walt Disney Imagineering created an immersive 3D video game/simulation for about 3-5 people on a scaled down ship mock up the customers stand upon based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disney theme parks. These were placed at some entertainment centers Disney set up. For the customer to get the most satisfying experience out of the game the captain of the group needs to steer the ship along a certain path. However, it was also found that for the best satisfaction the captain and crew must believe they have the freedom to steer where they wish. This was a dilemma, but they found a solution. They first recruited beta testers to find out which elements in the game attracted the most attention, causing the captain to steer towards them. Then they just set up those elements along the path that Disney wanted the customers to go. In that way they went the way Disney wanted them to go with them still believing it was totally their idea. They also had things along the path that kept the customers interested. This also had a tendency to keep them on the proper course and increased the customers/crew satisfaction and moral. The concept that Disney used is called Indirect Control. Also Disney found it is important to create flow so that there is a feeling of continued accomplishment along the path, with few interruptions. Interruptions can cause decreased satisfaction and give someone the opportunity to focus in directions that are not the direction you wish for them to go, increasing the probability the person will get off course. They also used story concepts, such as building drama, as the customers/crew went through the simulation/game. Tasks with many steps can be looked upon as stories building toward completion of the task, with the climax being reached at the final step where the final result is revealed. At the task's end the user should get a sense of satisfaction as you do with finishing a good story, even if with some more repetitive tasks it being small. By using story concepts, such as drama; increased satisfaction and focus on the tasks to be done can result.
As anyone who has done any considerable computer technical support knows, always some people will not get the proper message. In fact, some people will purposely go the exact opposite of what you want that to do, possibly messing a lot of things up in the process. You have to plan for dealing with these people and situations. Of course, literally or figuratively whacking your customer/user on the side of the head leads to lower customer satisfaction. Sometimes there are more subtle ways of dealing with these problems. In Disney's game, when a ship starts to get very far off course something negative, like a sea monster or fire breathing dragon appears. These objects will induce them to turn around and head in the opposite direction, which will get them back on course. But then there are those who still do not get the message. These people will sail off into oblivion never knowing the great things that Disney wanted them to experience. Of course they will tell their friends not to bother with the game, causing problems for Disney's marketing. To prevent this, when a ship is totally off course and in the middle of nowhere; a whirlwind appears, picks up the ship, and deposits it in the place it should be and on course.
These concepts of indirect control with direct control backup can be applied to software and the workplace. First you need to determine a range in which a software user or employee is probably successfully moving toward completion of the tasks given. You should have things that as users/employees go through this range that reinforce them to continue in the right direction. Then you need to set up some sort of system to alert you or the program that someone is outside of the range. You should have something at those points where they get outside the range that will have a tendency to get them to change to the correct course. If that fails, have something that is triggered that will cause intervention to put them back in the right place and on the correct course. It was also found you should give proper feedback to the user. In a first person defeat the invading aliens game program, picking up a large gun and have that action cause the gun's parts to move and lights flash on it along with appropriate sounds indicates to the player that he/she has successfully has picked up the gun and activated it. This causes the player to be encouraged that he/she has completed that task and ready for the next one. This increases the player's satisfaction and allowing more concentration toward the next task: blowing away that approaching alien before it destroys the player; therefore, allowing the player to continue on in the game. Remember that if a user does not get a response from an input/action they have directed toward a computer within 3 seconds, their frustration level rapidly accelerates and the user may start another action that could cause problems for the process they already have started(Some recent studies state that it has become less than 3 seconds). Longer response times can breed less customer satisfaction and increase technical support costs for your customer and yourself. So give your application user satisfying reinforcing feedback very quickly.
We can learn from developers of virtual worlds things that we can use outside that realm. We can keep focused on details the customer or employee will notice and their perspective. We can prevent details that will confuse or increase training costs and technical support. We can use indirect control with a system to detect when indirect control has failed and to select the appropriate more direct methods to be used. Also we can create appropriate feedback, flow, and drama to the customer or employee. By appropriately applying these principles we can deliver products that will have greater customer satisfaction with lower development costs and a more productive and satisfied workforce.
Source
Much of the material for this article came from the Gaming Techniques for Designing Compelling Virtual Worlds session at the SIGGRAPH 2001 International Conference held in Los Angles, California. Members of the session's panel were from Valve Software, Epic Games, Naval Postgraduate School, and Walt Disney Imagineering.
Timothy Everingham
He is President of Timothy Everingham Consulting in Azusa, California. He is also the President of the Los Angeles Area Alumni Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma, the business honor society, and Vice President of the Windows Media Users' Group of Los Angeles. He was the Secretary of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups and President of the San Diego Computer Society. He started a program to assist San Diego County schools, which has saved the schools 3 million dollars over 4 years and has been a model for programs throughout the United States. He is also on the Management Information Systems Program Advisory Board of California State University, Fullerton; which he also graduated from with honors with the double majors of Management Information Systems and Accounting. He is also part-time press in the areas of high technology, video, audio, and entertainment/media and has had articles published throughout the United States and Canada. He is also a member of SIGGRAPH and its Los Angeles Chapter. He is a member of North Orange County Computer Club. Further information can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~teveringham.
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