Active Worlds

Description

Active Worlds is a set of 3D environments where users are represented by 3D-model avatars. Each environment resembles a physical landscape, and buildings, billboards, and natural objects have been decorated according to the theme of the environment. Users control the movement and gesture of the avatars; there is no notion of facial expression. The gestures available to a trial user are TURN, HAPPY, WAVE, JUMP, MACA (macarena), and DANCE.

The Active Worlds interface presents the 3D graphical view and the chat messages in two separate frames. When a user writes a message, the text is displayed in the top graphical view (above the head of his or her avatar) as well as in the bottom chat message listing. The chat message listing is similar to the standard scrolling text-only chat display.

Environment design and impact on communication

Even though many of the Active Worlds environments have been designed to resemble the physical world we live in, certain real-world principles do not apply, with resulting impact on communication.

Active Worlds does not use the physical proximity metaphor that Chat Circles implements. I can send a message from any part of the environment, and the text is made visible to every other user in the chat message listing. The text is also made visible in the other users' graphical view, if their view contains my character; the text will be displayed regardless of how far away my character is within the view. Thus, avatar position and movement are not directly tied to the communicative features of the system. Because of this feature, some users did not feel it necessary to bring their avatars together into a shared space in order to have a conversation. They simply used the message listing as a simple text-only chat device if the other person was not nearby, instead of first looking for the person in the graphical view. Since avatar movement is not tied to the communication in any meaningful way, and the gesture set is very limited, the graphical view remained mostly static even during busy chat conversations. Part of this is the fault of the interface for controlling the avatar. If it was easy to zap your avatar close to someone you wish to talk to, or easy to make a large variety of animated gestures, perhaps different behaviors would have emerged.

Active Worlds does not conform to the laws of gravity. Users can cause the avatars to float up to the sky, and they will remain there, walking on air. This fanciful feature had an interesting effect on communicative behavior. Users would spontaneously agree to meet "above the dome" or "up by the building" for conversation. Even though their messages were visible to all users in the environment, the act of bringing their avatars close together - away from others - seemed to create a soft shell of intimacy. The fact that the shared space happened to be in the air, not easily visible to most other users standing on the ground, heightened this sense of private conversation. Flight also provided a fanciful joint activity for many users: "hey everyone let's fly up to the roof!"

Communicative competence

Some graphical forms of communicative competence:

• Greetings were a big part of the conversations, due to the design of the system. A large number of messages took some form greeting, such as "hi" or "wb" (welcome back) or "bye". This was mostly caused by the fact that there is no way of telling who is currently in the system or not. There were no automatic messages generated when someone enters or leaves the system, and the graphical view only shows a small part of the whole environment, where new users could enter several virtual miles outside one's view. The chat message listing, however, is visible to everyone, so most users found it important to announce or acknowledge (re-)entrances and departures using the chat.
• Acronyms and abbreviations seemed to be even more important in Active Worlds than it is in text-only chat, because users also are operating their avatars while chatting. The shortest way of saying something became the best way given the additional avatar-related activity.
• Observance of personal space for avatars is an important sign of politeness as well as communicative competence. When chatting with someone whose avatar was in close proximity, there seemed to be an average distance to keep between the two avatars. The distance was usually enough to both avatars to clearly display a long message above their heads, and enough to match the comfort zone we maintain in life. In one case, getting too close to the other user caused that avatar to back away. In another case, I moved right on the same spot as another avatar, and was promptly ignored for the rest of the conversation, presumably for my rudeness.
• Every user entering an environment starts with his or her avatar in the center of the environment. Because of this, there is usually a crowd of avatars in the center as successive new users log on. If those users were to all type messages at the same time, the text in the graphical view would be a jumble of white text above the heads of the mingling avatars. For visual clarity, most people have learned to move away at least slightly from the central portal location, before speaking.
• Random, incoherent movement and gesturing are sure signs of newbiedom. For example, the second time I used the system, I was trying out jumping and waving. Another user quickly pointed out that a newbie had just logged on.

Weakness

James Jung-Hoon Seo | 3.13.2000