Buckle up. Water's not deep, but put on a life jacket anyway.

This post is going to wander around the creek a bit.

We're all looking for something... something so simple to use, it's as simple as... flushing a toilet.

Sit, crap, and push the handle, right?

Interfaces. Keep them simple. Keep them intuitive.

Why the remote to the television and cable box and DVD player has gotten so complicated, I don't know. They should sell two remotes with these things... the rock-bottom simple one with just the basic buttons you need for everyday operations, then another one with all the feature you might possibly use.

Oh, and put the things you rarely need in an on-screen menu, please. Especially the dangerous ones that mess everything up. I want to have to hit two buttons to mess up my settings, please.

And that's where I contemplate Grace.

When you're with one of the Old Media trying to get a handle on shifting content and services to New Media, it's better to have a grasp of the new platform and help pump things in as opposed to sitting up in the ivory tower and pumping things out blindly.

Content-providers are shaped by the platform and audience they are providing to.

After all, would you expect McDonalds to have a drive-through window in a location that cars can't get to? (I can say McDonalds, right? As in "Boycott McDonalds because they're an Olympic sponsor and the Chinese are killing Tibetans." right?)

Sorry. Where was I?

Right.

Grace is in there, learning, exploring, experimenting, interacting, getting a feel for the world and the culture. Sure, her music is beautiful, but if you've spent any time reading her thoughts on virtual worlds, you discover someone who is dedicated to making virtual worlds easier to use and more beautiful content and interface-wise beyond the experience of music.

Shaping the world and shaped by it.

However, I get a little bit leery when I hear things like "Standards" invoked, as they were last night.

Most programs involving moving a person around a 3D space use ASWD/Arrow Keys for movement. If you're in a 3D space, it's very likely that at some point, you need to move through it.

But when it comes to the key combinations for interacting with the world, I'm not sure that there's really much that can be done or ought to be done with standardizing on various key combinations.

Some worlds are combat-oriented, some are socially-oriented, some are corporate-oriented.

I know it's a silly example, but you don't quite need "swing axe" when you're dancing among furries or giving a presentation on growth potential in Third World markets. (Okay, maybe you do, but that may be a hostile work environment that requires something other than a virtual world to mellow out.)

For the basics, sure... walk, turn, activate object, manipulate inventory, take a snapshot, teleport, check stats for client and server, etc. Standards can help. Print Screen for Windows is a screen capture, so why not make use of that for other platforms... why not settle on a common standard for stats and activation and...

Because if you enforce standards on interacting with a virtual world, what of innovation?

Think back for a bit. Before the iPod, you had the basic VCR controls for most media devices, right? Sure, you could skin Winamp, but the basics were there for 99% of the devices out there because that's what people were used to and that's what they expected.

Then... suddenly... scroll wheel.

Took me all of 5 minutes to get used to. But 5 minutes that came smoothly, and it makes me wish that every interface were that simple and easy to use.

Would the presence of industry standards prevent the virtual worlds equivalent of the touch-sensitive scroll-wheel? That great, undiscovered "Holy cow, this makes using this thing MUCH easier!" eureka moment some interface developer stumbles upon, or a third party gearhead comes up with in their basement and posts the hack to the forums.

Does setting a standard limit those kinds of innovations?

What should be a standards, not just for games, but all service-level interactions, is a walkthrough or tutorial.

One thing you'll find most games is a "Level Zero." That's where you're walked through the commands and menu options you need to know to play that game or use that interface effectively.

Lara Craft in Tomb Raider was probably the best example of a Level Zero I can recall. You got the basics of walking, running, jumping, climbing ropes, shooting, opening doors, finding secret rooms, and so on. Thief had a good one, too. (Yes, I'm a little out of date with such things, but the classics never die)

The Welcome Islands with their tutorials, to me, weren't all that bad with the rock-bottom basics. I learned the very simple stuff there.

It's the advanced stuff, like building and inventory management and other things that were a kick in the tuchus. And interacting with others in Friends lists and groups and such... that's beyond the basic intro, too.

Thank goodness for Torley's videos, I say. If they had been around when I had started, I'd have gotten off the ground much quicker... those are a must-see for new folks, I say.

I kinda wish we had those where I work. I suggested a "Level Zero" a year ago because customers were coming in blind, having nothing more than a credit card and delusions of grandeur when it comes to server management, thanks to lies the Marketing folks smeared in glossy brochures.

It was going to be a lot like walking through an Orientation Island. When you completed the task in one stage of the tutorial, you got the code to start the next.

Walk people through the basic terminology used for a server.
Walk people through updating billing information.
Walk people through policies on DCMA, Spam, Phishing, Abuse.
Walk people through some simple concepts of backing up data, running DNS.
Walk people through the difference between their server control panel and their customer portal.
Walk people through putting in a complete and effective trouble ticket.
Only when they put in the test trouble ticket and then successfully read an update do they get the password for the server to start working with it.

And when it comes to trouble tickets, the interface itself should goad or force people to provide all the information necessary. Not invite or entice... force.

If you're adding a DNS entry, it would help to have the nameservers you want them on, the IP address for each A record, any special A Records, any weird SPF or MX entries, and so on.

And having the domain name helps, too. People forget that sometimes, if you can believe it.

Makes you wonder how they were raised to think we read minds. That must have been one hell of an interface they were taught on. Where can we get one?

Go figure.

Yeah, having standards might be nice. But what I'd like to see is that the interface not only become more intuitive, but it also has the options practically leap out and slap you to be filled out and clicked on.

Does an intuitive interface come through years of experience with similar interfaces, like the VCR controls?

When I was in college, I went back to Ohio to paddle a creek with some friends.

The water wasn't more than 3 feet deep anywhere. In fact, it wasn't even there for some parts... we got out and carried the canoes a few times.

So, you tell me - why did we have the life jackets on?