The lie of privilege.

Ok. I’m tired of this. I’m going to say it in public and out loud:

Dear famous/wealthy/privileged designers and architects.:

Stop perpetuating the following lie:

“It’s not about the money.”

Stop. Just stop. Now. Instanter.

Before my head explodes. Let me explain something to you- when you say this at any time, it’s obnoxious. When you say it when there is a rate of unemployment of near 40% in the arch/design industry? It’s completely unconscionable. It’s not about the money for YOU, because you ALREADY HAVE THE MONEY. This is not a difficult concept. If you’re a famous and wealthy person in the industry, you get to make these ridiculous pronouncements, because the reality of what you just said doesn’t touch you.

Here, let me remind you of a few things. Design/Arch is not a “job”. It’s a career, and it’s very often more than that. It’s what you are, not what you do(not unlike being a writer, so I’m told.) The difference is that there are no legal requirements for being a writer (though I’m not sure some writers think that’s a good idea.) You are not required to go into massive amounts of educational DEBT to become a writer. But the point is this- that arch/design is something we love to do. We do it because it’s who we are. But do not, for one single shining moment discount the fact that it is a JOB and that YES in fact, the money is important. Sure! Everyone LOVES to see happy clients. Everyone LOVES to see a happy project manager. However the pat on the head and the “nice job” only goes so far. YES IT’S ALSO ABOUT THE MONEY.

See, you lose sight of this when “not enough money” is the difference between buying an ipod this week or next week rather than “how am I going to scramble together enough work so that I still have power” or whatever. And when upwards of 40% of the profession is currently out of work, “it’s not about the money” is RIDICULOUS. It’s only not about the money when it’s not YOUR money it’s not about.

STOP DOING THIS. NOW.

Where RL and virtual design collide into a cataclysm of failure.

I often talk about that place in the Venn diagram (what? I like Venn diagrams) where RL and VW (in my case, SL) design skills overlap. I think it’s interesting to note the ways that design is design is design, and that when humans are utilizing a product or space that their needs basically remain the same no matter where that design is ultimately located.

Of course this works both ways- when a design is good, it tends to be good pretty much everywhere. When a design fails spectacularly…yeah, it fails everywhere too.

So let’s talk about a couple of things.

1. You don’t fuck up a charity project.

Now, I have more experience with charity projects than the vast majority of people. Big ones. Small ones. International ones. I’m gonna repeat this:

You don’t fuck up a charity project. When you want people to donate to charity, your goal is to first and foremost make it *easy* for them to do so. Every obstacle you put in their way loses money for your chosen cause. Every time someone hits a barrier to giving you their hard earned cash, a certain percentage of them will decide that the hassle for them to give YOU money is too much, and walk away. The more barriers, the more money lost. It MUST be an easy experience.

2. When planning a large event like a convention, trade show or something similar, you need to keep several things in mind:

a) You must keep traffic flowing. Bottlenecks are bad, mkay?

b) You must create a traffic pattern in which people can walk in *one* path, *one* direction, and go from start to finish and see *everything* at the show. See point 1 above. People want to see everything at a show. If you get them lost, make it difficult for them to track their progress, or determine what they’ve seen and what they haven’t, *you will lose money and attendees*. They will not stick around long enough to buy anything, because they will be too busy being pissed off at your shitty layout. This is *not* the time to get crazy with the cheez whiz. Simplicity is key.

c) you must allow your vendors to sufficiently differentiate their spaces from one to another so that customers can easily create their own mental landmarks (i.e.: the giant booth with the castle on top, the booth with the lollipops in front, the booth with the dragons to either side- you get the idea). Forcing a great degree of continuity and sameness is contrary to your goal. People are visual- they will remember a visual cue much better and more quickly than a store name. They will also be more likely to tell their friends using that method as well, but if they forget a name? They will not bother to tell anyone.

Now, there’s a lot of other things involved in this kind of design, but those things up there? They’re not negotiable. They apply to every large scale event everywhere. It applies in the real world, and in any and all virtual worlds.

And then…

We have this year’s Hair Fair. Which is *precisely the opposite* of all the things I said just now. It is a colossal, epic cataclysm of design failure. The vendors have every right and reason to be *furious*, and I have no doubt at all that the unbelievable level of failure on the part of the physical layout is costing the vendors and the charity for whom they’re raising money, a LOT of cash.

Hair Fair raises money for charity. In this case it’s Wigs for Kids, which helps out kids who are dealing with cancer. However, see point one, above. There are problems that are unique to SL (lag, sculpties and rez time) that are problematic here also (the lag is unavoidable- the sheer volume of sculpties is plain old garden variety stupid), but the main issues are related to basic and fundamental design principles which exist *everywhere*.

Previous Hair Fairs were not like this. You *could* walk all the way around all of it (all four sims worth) in one path. This one is markedly different, and not for the better. The vendors are stuck into tents, creating a confusing warren of disconnected buildings and seemingly unpredictable entrances and exits. In reality, the layout is symmetrical, along a central axis. But since the tents are not open to the front, once inside, you lose your sense of direction easily, particularly when faced with the enormous amount of lag one expects at an event like this.

The tents themselves are ugly. They look like a cross between the set of M*A*S*H* and the backstage area of a cut rate fashion show. There’s no connection between them and the outside, which is a shame, since they would feel far less claustrophobic were they open to the front. There’s a strong sense of disorientation, and it’s nearly impossible to determine what you’ve seen and what you haven’t from a distance, because the visual cues of differentiation from booth to booth are almost nonexistent.

The only way to successfully navigate this mess is to teleport from location to location- except the notecard of the SLurls contains a listing of *unlinked* ones. (again, adding yet another step- see point one. Oh also, the Slurl for Analog Dog is incorrect- this is the correct one: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hair%20Fair/228/86/25 )

However, not even THIS will help you, because on three of the four sims, point to point teleportation has been disabled- forcing you to a landing point or to follow a beacon, adding to the confusion. Only the most determined (and I really mean the MOST) determined hair shoppers will bother with this for four sims worth(roughly 200 vendors) worth of stuff. The percentage of people who will see everything or even bother to try is vanishingly small.

Now, before everyone jumps my shit for “picking on a charity”, I want to say a couple of things- the reason why Im so annoyed by this is *because* it’s for charity.  The  CHARITY and the vendors deserve better than this.  Also, I am part of the vanishingly small percentage of people who saw *every single vendor*.  I spent over $30,000L.  So I paid my nickel for my stance on this.  I know that if I did not have a *vested* and deep interest in getting this stuff (I do, for modeling purposes) I would have gotten my ass out of there after the first half sim- not because of the lag (which is expected) because of the layout.

I am sure the people who run Hair Fair are lovely and good people. But I am begging them to find a professional designer to lay out their fair next year.  Hell, I’ll even do it for free. But this? This is a fiasco. No. Do not want.