Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

In Curiza’s comment the introduction of avatars to PAL is related to the emergent possibilities for
the visitors’ movements in the sim. The experiential dimension of ‘letting them fall down’ is
therefore connected to the emergent semiotic cognitions of the users as they enter a new region.
Visibility of the open-space design presents visitors with a first visual clue on the contents and their
semiotic organization.
AmyLee: So this makes the thinking different. In SL, you can fly, you don't hurt yourself if you
fall, you teleport to places, etc. So this is a wide open space (I love flying through it!) There is a
long pathway driving throughout the sim so people who like to walk can discover the sim at a
slow pace. There is also a strong teleporter network, for people who want to go right to their
point. We offer everything SL can offer to explore a place, in fact.
AmyLee thinks it the designer’ task to consider “how they walk, fly into it, what they will see from
different standpoints.” For instance, open spaces allow the avatars fly and move more freely
between locations, whereas teleport links can also transport them to specific places. Visual
signifiers guide the visitors towards certain directions, or present paths to follow. In the quote
below, Shaggy’s view refers to how their assessment of visitor behaviors led them to make more
open-ended representations for affordances:
Shaggy: [P]eople, most of it, would walk in or fly or use the teleporters and explore. (…) And
that was the idea we had at the beginning. We wanted some place that people would like to
explore. Just not go there, sit there and listen to their music; but also walk and explore and be
surprised (…) We tried to make as much diversity as we can in that space, so people can just
appropriate this space to themselves.
Figure 8.9. General view of PAL from above
Figure 8.10. Close-up view of the orange pathways that surround the sim
As a result, PAL’s potential affordances to facilitate movement among places include both verbal
and non-verbal signifiers (various combinations of image, color and text) and interactive elements
that facilitate movements, or chronotopes. Following this line of thought, several visual signifiers
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