December 2024 SL Web User Group summary

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday December 4th, 2024. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Table of Contents Meeting Overview General Update Single Sign-On Gifting Marketplace Items Second Life Web Maps General Discussion Date of Next Meeting

Meeting Overview

• The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
• As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
  • On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
  • In both Voice and text.
  • At this location.
• Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
• Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

General Update

[Video: 1:59-3:59 and 6:18-8:45]

• Marketplace UI: work on updating the marketplace with a new user interface is described as being in the final stages of internal testing and thus “very close”.
• Second Life Dashboard (secondlife.com): this is also being updated to a new design, and there is a chance it may be deployed in the next month / during January 2025.
• Web Log-in and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): this is ongoing work to update the Second Life web log-in splash screen to a new design which will will work better on all devices, and will support MFA.
• Marketplace MFA: work is continuing on adding MFA to the Marketplace.
• Also in the works:
  • Changes to Linden Home store, adding some UI updates.
  • Updating the Second Life web maps – described as “still in early design”. Some of this work was mentioned in the November meeting – also see below.

Single Sign-On

• [Video: 5:28-5:58] The subject of single sign-on (SSO) – allowing a user to log-in with a single ID to several related but independent services (e.g. SL dashboard, the Marketplace, (possibly) the viewer, etc.), just once (and possibly with unified authentication factors) Has often bee requested  – and looked at – by the Lab. In response to SSO being raised at this meeting, Sntax Linden responded:

SO and Federated login is something we have been looking at doing in the future. The MFA on web login and marketplace will just be reusing the existing MFA we have on viewer and mobile.

Gifting Marketplace Items

[Video: 7:09-8:45 and 11:44-24:06]

• This has been discussed at past meetings. Gifting is seen as confusing for some (having the Add to Cart as Gift and Buy Now buttons so close together suggests Buy Now must be clicked when gifting); plus the Shopping Cart is often used as a means of storing things people might be interested in purchasing, but as gifting is tied to it, carts must be cleared of anything stored therein.
• As such, requests have been made for a direct means of gifting items in a manner similar to the Buy Now button (e.g. an “Gift Now”) button.
• Commenting on this,  Juniper Linden said:

We do have some updates to the gift UI coming out soon-ish; minor changes to that flow that might be better but nothing like “gift now”

• Sntax indicated the MP team will get to gifting as soon as they can.
• The basic requirement for this was seen as a simple button within listings, per above.
  • However, maintaining the ability to still add gifts to the cart as an option was also seen as useful – so having the “Gift Now” button present the current steps for gifting (enter recipient’s name + an optional message) followed by options to send the gift directly or add it to the Shopping Cart was seen as the optimal solution.
• The main pressure from the meeting was to have some form of “band-aid” solution for direct gifting, and then refine things after-the-fact. This was seen as the preferable course of action.
• This conversation also spiralled into use of legacy (user) names over Display Names and mis-gifting people.

Second Life Web Maps

[Video: 28:09-54:59]

• As noted above, LL are looking at updating the Second Life web maps (https://maps.secondlife.com/), and to this end, a series of questions were asked on the functionality they provide:
  • Do people use the web maps or just the in-viewer World Map. Probably fair to say the if a broad audience were asking, there would be a reasonable split between “viewer” and “both”.
  • Is the Create Your Own SLurl option in the viewer World Map a useful option?
  • Do people use the Destination Guide element of the web maps to find places?
  • Do people use the Search option on web maps?

• That those at the meeting assumed that these questions were focused on the viewer’s World Map (with ensuing confusion as to the Search and Destination Guide questions) is possibly indicative as to how often the web maps are directly used (although eight people at a meeting is far too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions).
• Web Maps are frequently used, however – and possibly without people realising they are a map system – when clicking on SLurls included in things like blog posts, etc., in order to locate and teleport to the region / location in question.
• The above spread to a discussion on sharing SLurls and how people go about it (including the misconception that the viewer World Map does not allow for the copying / creation of SLurl, despite the large button at the bottom of the Map legend).
• A request was made for possible information to be added to the SL maps. Replies focused on the viewer World Map and included:
  • A “show rez zones” option.
  • A “show Set Home locations” option to help new users to find regions where they can set their home position.
  • Ability to find out more about  location via the map. Fore example, clicking on a location on map.scondlife.com gives a default dialogue (which LL have stated will be updated to actually reflect the region information) – having this available for regions / parcels on the viewer World Map was suggested (on a mouse-over hover?).
  • Whether or not a location is open to public teleporting  / a user’s ability to teleport (e.g.  whether there is a minimum age set for access, or access is controlled by having Payment Information on File).

General Discussion

• The last 10 minutes of the meeting focused on issues around links to outdated videos on web properties such as Where Next? the Support portal, etc., and the potential negative impact they have on new users / incoming new users.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, January 8th, 2025.