• Click for the full web.alive launch press release.

Also, new web.alive videos posted:

• http://avayalive.com/WaStore/Video.aspx?v=intro
• http://avayalive.com/WaStore/Video.aspx?v=navigation

The architecture and building materials of our traditional corporate offices tell a story. We all know the narrative. Car parks out front and back act as modern day moats. Bricks, blocks and partitions mark fictional, functional borders and boundaries. Structured cable arteries pulse and pump information between floors and walls.

Steel and glass have replaced timber and mortar in the same way that we see linear improvements in the materials used to make our TV’s brighter and flatter but the office has fundamentally remained unchanged in the last 100 years.

Delivered to us by the industrial revolution our offices need to be upgraded, rebooted and made fit for purpose for the networked society we live in today and the way it does business.

We’re in the eye of a technology revolution that’s reshaping our world and the way we live, learn and work within it. We need corporate infrastructure that’s at the same pH level as the world around us and that means our offices as well : too acidic and they will choke the flow of information, too alkaline and they will restrict the potential shared experience with the customer.

 Last week I spent an afternoon in my physical Corporate office. It wasn’t just the commute that got me down.  US workers spend an average 70mins per day getting to and from the office (http://www.time.com/time/2007/america_numbers/commuting.html), UK workers closer to 90 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3085647.stm) . That’s in the region of 150 hours per year. Nearly a working month per year is spent just getting to and from the office.

No, what really struck me is that we’ve let our offices isolate us from our customers, partners, products and even our employees.    

The office walls around us have become exactly that : isolating obstacles that stand between us and improved business. Over the decades we’ve introduced linear improvements to our offices when what we really need is to create persistent, flexible semi- permeable membranes between our companies and customers to promote the timely 2 way flow of information, experience and relationship that drives sales and revenue.

We can’t use the same thinking that got us into this situation to get us out of it. The answer lies in the application of technology and innovation.  Our offices should be conduits for business not containers - access and entry points for all stakeholders in our value chain when THEY want it not when WE want to give it.  

The signs that our offices need to change is all around us.

If 5, 50 or 500 people in an office communicate solely with email, IM, VoIP do they really need to be in the same physical space that costs thousands of dollars to heat and light? As customer gas prices, productivity requirements and environmental awareness go up wouldn’t it be better to give customers direct access to our employees, knowledge and experience when they need it in a digital space they can visit with one click from wherever they are? 

After all, isn’t the real message of CSAT surveys that customers want effective and cost efficient professional, personalised service when they need it?

Research tells us that Teleworking delivers upto 20% improved productivity while increasing employee retention (see  http://www.ivc.ca/costbenefits.htm) and cutting Opex.  But that’s only half the answer. It’s correct to accept there’s an alternative to the traditional office but not enough to simply move the office construct from one physicality to another and then try to replicate its functionality.

Instead, we need to harness technology to reinvent our own and customer relationship with the corporate office.

The conversation needs to be about effectiveness and efficiency, in that order. We need to make our offices accessible from and embedded within our customers’ networks.  We can do this and we can do it today. With web.alive : you, me and our customers can interact in an immersive, natural, digital experience from their website or anywhere on the web when they want to. That’s an important point, when they want to or need to.

The days of a standardised, production line, one size fits all approach to dealing with customers have gone. In its place, customers demand personalised attention when they need it. They’re in the driving seat and the companies who give them the best vehicle for communication, collaboration and business will help them navigate most safely to the future.   

… just a thought, what happens when you don’t just provide a mask but also a digital toolkit that allows people to show and share their emotions? Emotions are important not just as an expression of who we are and how we feel but as a key influencer on the outcome of our interactions and activities.

Getting out of bed on the wrong side, kicking the cat or getting frustrated while driving to the office don’t always help create a state of mind that supports maximised collaborative or personal activity. Alternatively, if we create a natural, comfortable environment that allows accurate expression of emotions – can we expect to see better collaboration, engagement and results?

Maybe…

I’m not so much thinking of the physical world but of the digital one. Immersive platforms that allow for the natural expression of emotion might bridge the perceived digital divide. None of us really love computers, irrespective of our age, it’s all about what they allow us to do.

If we can express ourselves in a natural way across the computerised network by using a toolkit that accurately reflects our emotions maybe I can connect my truth with your truth and everybody else’s truth.

Imagine that … just a thought….

 May 6^th, 2010: anywhere in London, UK

05.45 : Buzz, buzzzz, buzzzzzz, buzzzzzzz – BANGGG …alarm off… 

06.07 : ‘Aaarggghhh’ - I haul my suitcase and laptop bag down the 8 flights of stairs from our apartment.

06.10 : Positioned with my back to the taxi boot, I bend my knees, swivel and drop my bags with a grunt last heard accompanying a Seles backhand.

06.15 : On my way to Victoria railway station. The driver says something about volcanoes in Iceland – I don’t pay any attention ….for now.

06.38 : Taxi driver separates me from £35 and leaves me to get my bags myself, ‘he’s not daft’, I think to myself as I step into the drizzle

06.56 : Leaning against my suitcase on the Southern ‘direct’ train to Gatwick airport I wonder why don’t they make trains with the overhead suitcase rails anymore. Probably no bad thing I decide, I don’t think I could lift my laptop bag above my head anyway.

07.45 : Arrive at Gatwick Airport Railway station. Joining a long flow of commuters headed for the ticket turnstile, I feel like a human data packet trapped in an ATM cell.

08.15 : Still in the RyanAir queue – surprise.

08.30 : Now for the security checks and passport controls. I proceed sheepishly and shoelessly, arms spread like the Jesus figure on top of that mountain overlooking Rio.  The guy starring at the TV screens asks me to put my laptop bag through again, – I bet he’s wondering why I brought 4 headsets in my laptop bag – me too .

08:40 : I try to avoid the monster bars of Toblerone and free tasters of Baileys Mint Liquer (surprisingly minty) in Duty Free and wait to board RyanAir flight 113 to Dublin.

08.50 : ‘OOOHHHHH NO’ : I I gaze up at the flight departure screen in disbelief. Line after line ended with the words Volcanic Ash. I should have asked the taxi driver what he was talking about…           

09.00 : The banner at the bottom of the SkyTV news tells me a volcano 75 miles east of Reykjavik has erupted raining ash and chaos on European air space.

09.15 : Back at the check-in desk I find myself now checking out. Reunited with my suitcase I trudge back to the railway platform…

12.30 : I log on in my home office. Coffee on my left, I click on my web.alive url, I meet with Arn and the guys, I tell them what’s happened … no sympathy. I’m back where I started after 7 hours and £300 spent on taxis, trains and grounded plans AND I’m tired to boot :

I’ve only got one thing to say : ‘ Corporate Travel : what a pain in the Ash’          

“The completion of this acquisition represents another major step in Avaya’s evolution and growth in the communications industry,” said Kevin J. Kennedy, president and CEO, Avaya.

The web.alive team is excited to be working as part of Avaya — number one in worldwide unified communications systems.  The web.alive microsite (www.projectchainsaw.com) has already been updated to reflect the new ownership.

More information about Avaya’s plans for web.alive will be available in the coming months.   One way to learn about Avaya’s new integrated product roadmap is to attend the live webinar.

web.alive beta 2

As of November 27^th web.alive beta 2 has been released. This release incorporates hundreds of new features since our beta 1 from January this year.

Some of the head-line features include :

• drag and drop documents and images into web.alive to make presentations, collaboration, and training easy
• voice just works (even better!) – noise suppression & echo cancellation allows for a great experience with your built-in laptop speakers and microphone
• web rendering – we can render virtual any web content in world. This powerful feature allows access to all kinds of media (e.g. stream video from YouTube), applications (e.g. collaborate using Google docs), and data (e.g. Wikipedia).
• firewall traversal – users behind virtually any firewalls (including http proxies) can now get access to web.alive
• presenter powers – presenters are automatically granted additional capabilities to help communicate with and manage their audience
• greatly improved avatar customization and personalization
• file sharing, URL sharing, text chat, and file drop boxes
• idle & away states with nudging
• secure areas with an invitation feature that lets you vouch for other users
• telephony integration – call into web.alive from your regular phone
• internationalization support, starting with the French language
• support for the latest browsers and Microsoft Windows 7
• self administration features (customize your environment with your floor plan, colors and images, embed web.alive on your page, manage users, etc)
• analytics – dive deep into what users are doing in your environment
• and tons more…

We are very excited about the new release, so we welcome you to try it out in the .alive tab of our newly revamped web site www.projectchainsaw.com. See you soon.

]]> http://blogs.avayalive.com/2009/11/webalive-beta-2-released/feed/ http://blogs.avayalive.com/2009/11/microsoft-and-lenovo-launch-windows-7-using-webalive/ http://blogs.avayalive.com/2009/11/microsoft-and-lenovo-launch-windows-7-using-webalive/#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:26:40 +0000 Arn Hyndman http://blogs.projectchainsaw.com/?p=288 During the Windows 7 launch week at the end of October, Microsoft and Lenovo used web.alive to help launch the newest Microsoft OS. Representatives from Microsoft and Lenovo held a series of events in Lenovo’s web.alive powered virtual showroom to help consumers  understand what Windows 7 is all about and how Lenovo is building PCs that enhance the experience.

Microsoft's Kris Moore presents

I attended one session where Microsoft’s Kris Moore ran us through the new features of the OS. People from all over North America were attending and had lots of questions to ask. Kris was a knowledgeable guy and used images from his slides and the laser pointer to help answer everyone’s questions. The atmosphere was casual and polite – it seems like a lot of the audience were pretty keen to try Windows 7. A few individuals asked detailed questions about application and hardware compatibility; cautious after the difficult Vista upgrade.

Speaking of application compatibility, web.alive beta 2 fully supports Windows 7 and IE 8.

After the week of events we received some very nice feedback from both Lenovo and Microsoft, but what was perhaps most rewarding for me was the realization that the virtual experience was every bit as engaging and social as attending the real world launch event – and I didn’t have to step out into the rain to get there.

INTRODUCTION

Usability testing and evaluation provide insight into how users will likely interact with a particular system.   Frequently usability testing and evaluation are used as part of a process whose goal is to modify a system to become more efficient and satisfying to use.  In the case of virtual reality systems and virtual worlds in particular, there seems to have been relatively little published on the use of usability testing and the learning’s from that testing.  In this blog we look at applying low cost usability testing as part of a process to improve the usability of a new virtual world interface (Nortel’s web.alive).  We also discuss a new variation of traditional usability testing designed specifically for testing group interactions.

What is a virtual world interface?

The term virtual world is typically applied to a computer simulated environment populated by user controlled avatars.  A virtual world interface is the portion of the virtual world application which allows users to view and interact with the virtual world – including controlling their avatar.  It is important to distinguish between virtual worlds and virtual world interfaces as they each have their own usability concerns.  In many ways, virtual worlds and virtual world interfaces are analogous to web pages and web browsers.

Why are virtual world interfaces different?

Virtual world interfaces are different than conventional 2D office application interfaces for several reasons including interactions with 2D image that is a projection of 3D data, multiple users interacting in real time, and the distinction between interacting within the virtual world and with the virtual world interface.

TEST METHODOLOGY

As web.alive is intended to be used by individuals with little or no training and by a population likely to include a significant percentage of users with no prior virtual world experience, usability was a particular concern for the development team from the start.

Usability testing was introduced as part of an iterative design and development process.  Usability test sessions were implemented as new interface features or behaviors were considered in the iterative design process.  Two types of tests where employed: (1) individual user tests and (2) group interaction tests.

1.    Each individual user test used a small number of subjects (typically 5) as recommended by Jakob Nielson.   Each subject was individually run through test protocols targeted at exposing problems in the virtual world interface independently.   Subjects with average business software knowledge were screened to ensure they had no prior experience with virtual world interfaces.

2.    Group interaction tests employed a larger number of users (typically 15-20).  Usability test protocols where designed to expose usability issues with features and functions related to users interacting with each other in a virtual world via the virtual world interface.  Each subject ran through the protocol in parallel so that they could interact with each other.  This did introduce some challenges (see below).  Subjects were screened to ensure that they were capable with basic operation of a virtual world interface to avoid concealing group usability issues with issues related to basic individual operation of the interface.

In either case, results where published to the team within days and updated designs proposed and implemented rapidly to allow retesting in ensure the updated design indeed improved interface usability.

Protocol Design Issues

Group interaction tests require users to interact with many other users.  This creates several challenges for protocol design and evaluation of behavior: (1) controlling the environment such that each user is exposed to the same stimulus is not possible as users must interact with each other, (2) large numbers of users running the test simultaneously would require equally large numbers of observers in traditional testing, and (3) resources where not sufficient to bring all users into a test lab for observation.

Our approach was:

1.    Accept some variability in stimulus, but to design the test protocol in order to provide similar stimulus to groups of users (target of 5) within the test.  For example, usability of the system in satisfying a “locate user” objective could be tested by placing test subjects into pairs where one individual is instructed to hide and the other individual instructed to find their opposite number.  In this case, each half of the test subjects would be running a similar test.  To maximize efficiency, tests where designed such that even when all subjects where not performing the same tasks, all tasks where designed to provide useful usability data.

2.    Accept that we cannot observe all users continuously and instead perform “spot observations”, in test surveys and exit interviews.

3.    Collect data from within the system by observing avatar behavior (as a proxy for the controlling user’s behavior) as well as observations of a subset of users in lab.

OBSERVATIONS

Individual user testing following established low cost usability testing / evaluation and group interaction testing were both effective in finding significant usability problems.   We were also able to determine if subsequent design changes did in fact improve the software.  In several cases, multiple design and test iterations were required to resolve problems found.

Individual user test results

Initial individual user testing found 9 significant usability problems for the new user population with the core elements of the interface.  It required several iterations until these problems were solved (as evidenced by the drop in issues found by test 3).  At that point testing progressed to more advanced/obscure features and new sets of problems were uncovered.

Test    Version    Subjects    Problems
1         b53           5                9
2         b56           6              10
3         b62           5                2
4         B65           5                8
…    …    …    …
Table 1: Subset of individual test result summary data

Group interaction test results

Group interaction testing was successful in exposing new types of usability problems in the virtual environment interface.  We estimate about 30% of problems were group interaction related (GIR) and would not have been found via individual testing.

Test    Version    Subjects    Problems     GIR probs
1         b58           16             15                5
2         b60             8               6                1
…    …    …    …    …
Table 2: Subset of group interaction test result summary data

CONCLUSION

Our usability testing process appears to be paying dividends for web.alive at a time when many virtual world interfaces are being criticized for significant usability problems.  Solutions found to usability problems uncovered via both individual and group interaction testing for web.alive tantalize with the possibility of general solutions and future design guidelines for virtual world interfaces.  Future blogs will explore the solutions we have discovered and the possibility of generalizing these solutions.

Learning is inherent in human nature – something we do like sleeping or eating, fundamentally experiential and social. It’s the ability to negotiate new meanings and involves dynamic interplay between experience and current participation to create a new position. It’s a matter of social energy and active engagement. Learning transforms our identities and our ability to participate in the world by changing who we are, our practices and our communities. We’re all members of multiple communities – within families, organisations, schools, across the web, in sports teams, music bands, cities, districts and streets. Communities of practice are an integral part of our daily lives and offer powerful opportunities for converting information to knowledge to useful experience.

I’m fascinated by the question of how organisations support and spread learning and how web.alive will do that on a wider and more effective scale – because make no mistake it will. Already I’ve seen how the global nature of web.alive strengthens the local – earlier this week I met with UK customers in the Lenovo elounge where a shared interest sparked discussions that will lead to local interaction.

The global nature of web.alive doesn’t replace the local but strengthens it.

Our Communities are not static and web.alive provides them with the opportunity to grow, evolve and achieve their aims. Web.alive allows the latent, inherent similarities and shared objectives of its users to connect and collaborate in a way that fosters understanding, teamwork and community.

Organisations and educational institutes are social designs directed at practice – it’s through their practices that they can do what they do, know what they know and learn what they learn. Communities of practice are therefore key to an organisation’s competence, its development and success. We are social beings who look to learning to provide meaning. That meaning has always been shared in communities of practice. The web.alive environments we build will forge new communities of practice that are truly global - where membership is based on a shared desire to co-operate, create and collaborate. Our similarities will inspire interaction and our differences spark innovation as we rub shoulders with those whose personalities and perspectives are different from our own.

Web.alive creates more effective and engaging corporate and personal communities where learning objectives and shared interests will grow and evolve through the experience, not be limited but liberated by its possibilities – surely that’s a good thing - Let me know your thoughts…