Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

In our second interview, she explains how the overall American outlook is a result of commonality
and familiarity with the visual language. According to Caitlyn, the team decided to “replicate
American metropolitan places, because those are more common for the superhero genre than
European metropolitan places.” Visitors are expected to make sense of the place quickly, by
generating and resolving what she describes as ‘questions’ about what the place means and what
potential affordances and constraints it offers for mediated interaction.
In the PAL case, the co-designers framed their visual language more freely, as they were not
constrained by particular genre conventions. According to the co-designers, their aim was to
emphasize the unique potentials of listening to music while experiencing the virtual place. By most
of its co-designers, PAL’s design was described as “SL-like” (AmyLee and Shaggy) or “SL-ish”
(Xavier) rather than being associated with a particular genre. The co-designers indicate a form of
semiotic resistance to norms of RL, and the physical constraints that “RL places” present. It was
also mentioned that certain visual references were used in order to familiarize visitors to the
landscape (i.e. “natural” colors and layout) while the overall visual expression is built on iteration
of simple geometric forms, extensive use of colors, and flying structures that signify the virtuality of
the place.
AmyLee: [I]t was very important, right from the beginning, not to offer a RL replica. We really
wanted to offer people a unique experience, something they can't have anywhere else. (…) I
know some people are almost upset when they don't recognize the place as something they
could see in their everyday life. But, anyway, this choice was natural, we all (Curiza, Shaggy,
Xavier, me) wanted something totally SL.
Shaggy: you’ll have some people who will definitely need SL to be SL and some other people
who will need to find in SL what they know in RL. You have all these kinds of people. So,
you’ve got to please everyone.
For Shaggy, properly representing the balance of visual style/form and functionality was an
important consideration in design from the beginning:
Shaggy: [J]ust making something that is totally different and just the opposite of what you
could see in the real world. But you don’t have to be too much surprising. I mean, people must
understand quickly where they are and what this place is about. So there’s a balance to be
found, at some point.
Curiza explains his original intentions as being ‘futuristic’, which lead to the first ‘walk through
sound’ design of the virtual place:
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