Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

the four Moons group, a few members had knowledge of and experience with The SIMS, an
interactive game-like social world where avatars and their homes can be customized and social
relations can be established. In a discussion between the Venus and the four Moons group
interview, students argued why SL is not a game like SIMS, and how come it is not as interesting as
online social media platforms such Facebook. For RUT from the group, SL is not a game because
“you can create something on your own”, while she also mentions simpler avatar-creation options
in games such as SIMS. For AGN and RUT, the importance of freedom to create is to provide a
chance to be ‘unique’ and ‘different’. However, for some of the workshop students, SL was indeed a
‘boring’ place where they could not see the point of presence and participation, and were not open
to socializing with RL characters concealed behind avatars as anonymous representations. In
another discussion between Superheroes and Supervillains group, students argued how come SL
feels ‘boring’, and MAJ explained how she felt about SL in a frequently mentioned way: “It’s not
boring when we had something to do, when we meet, when we have to do stuff.” For most
students, a significant challenge was not being able to socialize with people in ways that they are
used to doing online. What was visible in the group discussions is that students’ experiences with
other digital media platforms, with which they have more familiarity, affect their experiences, and
often lead them to compare the two platforms in relation to their media practices. Students also
often compare SL to Facebook and other popular social media. RUT comments on importance of
social networking as: “If you have lot of friends, like a broad social network in SL, then you’ll get
back to SL. You have new friends. For new friends that you can only see in SL, maybe you’ll come
back again.” Whereas some students comment on the lack of real-world information on avatar
profiles.
In SL, more often than not, user are represented only by their avatars’ visual characteristics and
their profile pages which lists their interests, groups and favorite locations, but not necessarily
their RL identities, if at all. On the other hand, the co-designers of the other two other projects
were more successful at tapping the social environment as a resource, such as the hiring of
outsourced builders in SL or the way PAL design team met in SL only through their inworld
identities. The efficient use of inworld knowledge resources and the integration of other external
resources to SL depend heavily on the co-designers’ intentions, motivations, as well as their sociotechnical
capabilities in SL. This perspective links the prior sections of analysis to the next section,
where such personal and cultural differences and/or similarities reflected on the analysis of the
collaborative design processes, and the practices of the co-designers, in which they use these
platforms for their specific purposes.
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