Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

lipstick by available resources. They worked together on the construction of the overall form,
whereas some details (i.e. chairs, animations inside the spaceship) were created separately by
different avatars. However, sharing the tasks presented another serious obstacle. Students often
found themselves dealing with error messages and unexpected consequences due to the object
permissions. In fact, the problems caused by the ineffective use of object modification tools in
combination with the sharing options was among the major problems in all student groups. The
groups met in the Metrotopia Sandbox and attempted to use their avatars to co-create various
objects and parts, after which they realized the importance of certain options, such as the
limitations of assembling or animating collectively produced prims. At this point, the role of
supervision and tutorship come in effect, as we both guided the students to use the options
properly and intercepted when there was a problem. However, the permission and ownership
system of SL’s virtual creations remained to be among the central issues that the Workshop
students had to overcome.
Other challenges were about students’ motivations to produce complex multimodal presentations
by using scripted objects, which was a particular challenge for them because of their limited
experience with the scripting system in SL, and programming languages in general. Students tried
to collect and re-use free scripts from within SL, most of which caused problems or needed
modification. The collaborative design activities were also learning processes for the students, and
their collaborations are often resulted from their need for people who could contribute with
different skills, tools and resources to expand the scope of their design. Although the co-designers
of Metrotopia and PAL were often able to find help from their inworld networks and
acquaintances, the students lacked the necessary social capital in SL, thus they helped each other to
solve problems, and shared knowledge gained from their explorations.
7.4. Synthesis of the nexus of social actors, mediational means and
collaborative design processes
In the previous chapter, I have discussed the ways in which design teams are formed by individuals
with different purposes and varying professional backgrounds, as well as knowledge of and
experience in VWs. These human actors perform different tasks in different ways by using various
tools and resources that are socially available to them. In SL projects, co-designers with different
competences in content-generation often present heterogeneous networks of creative and
collaborative practices. The fact that every co-designer brings new competences –as well as
resources – to the collaborative project leads to particular configurations in group-formation and
design methods. I argue that the co-designers co-produce the objects through multiply-discursive
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