Advice To Daz From A 3D Newbie
For what little it may be worth, here's some constructive feedback which might assist the Daz team in closing the deal with new users, ie. prospective Daz Store customers. The following advice arises from 20 years of designing interfaces on the Web, and a teaching degree.
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A friend on another forum said about Daz, "You can't just arrange dolls and press a button. There's no real easy mode."
And I replied...
Yes, I agree, you're correct of course. You are accurately describing DAZ as it is.
I was attempting to describe DAZ as it easily could be. DAZ could retain all the wonderful features it currently has and, in addition, at the same time, it could...
Have a novice screen where you arrange dolls and then click a button. There could be a real easy mode if the developers saw the business value. Imagine this....
DAZ launches to the splash screen and you are given two choices, Easy Mode and Expert Mode. Experienced users will choose Expert Mode (the interface as it currently is) and then set that as the default interface.
Easy Mode users could see this. On the left side of screen there are four characters, two female, two male. On the right side of screen are ten animation buttons. The novice user chooses a character from the left, and clicks an animation button on the right. In the middle panel the chosen character then dances or whatever the animation is.
This setup immediately delivers a satisfying experience to the new user, which gives them the motivation to continue. This is an all important concept because if they don't continue, and keep continuing, they don't become customers.
The interface I just described would soon become boring, so the new user could then proceed to the next interface which would begin to introduce other features of DAZ, such as for example, the ability to change the clothes on the character. The interface following that would introduce new animation options etc.
The new user could be taken step by step through a series of interfaces that would gradually introduce all the features of DAZ in a systematic controlled manner, instead of dumping all the very many features of DAZ on new users all at once.
Think of stairs. You can climb stairs all the way to the top of a 100 story building because each stair is only 8 inches higher than the last one, so you can easily conquer each stair one at a time.
What most powerful software does (not just DAZ) is insert a 40 foot high stair right at the beginning of the stairway. So what happens is that new users come in all jazzed up from the sales pitch, but then they confront the 40 foot high obstacle, which deflates their enthusiasm, and replaces joy with disappointment.
The next step that typically happens is the new user is then blamed for their unwillingness to climb this very poorly constructed stairway. And so enthusiasm is deflated further, replaced perhaps with resentment.
BIG PROBLEM: The next step that always happens is that the majority of the people who might have become life long customers uninstall the software instead.
This is not because the software sucks as that is rarely the case, and is not the case with DAZ either. What sucks is the stairway that leads from the newbie level to the higher levels.
That stairway can be fixed. The 40 foot high obstacle at the beginning of the stairway can be replaced with forty one foot high steps. And then way more people will make it to the top. And then the software developer, DAZ in this case, will make lots more money.
This is particularly relevant to free software like DAZ whose business model depends on people hanging around and buying things over the long term. It's less relevant to software that gets all it's money upfront in the sale of the software, like Poser perhaps?
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Comments
And in reply, some advice to the 3D Newbie. Pop over here and see what is done in the learning program set up within these contests.
If you check out past contests here you will see that this is actually a farily structured learning program which also gives you the opportunity to pace yourself, check your progress against other new users, and actually maybe win some prizes as well.
You could also look at the interactive tutorials and the Scene Builder, available from the DS welcome screen (which should open by default).
Thanks Richard, others have mentioned that too, but I'll be darned if I can find what is being referred to. When I launch Daz I first see a colorful splash screen which informs me that Daz is loading. Loads pretty fast, thumbs up for that. Then I see a screen which asks me if I want to login in to my Daz account. Upon dismissing that I see the full interface.
It appears I require more specific directions to:
1) the welcome screen
2) Scene builder
3) interactive tutorials
To stay on topic of my opening post, I'm guessing large numbers of people never find these things, and thus are lost as customers to the Daz team.
Yes, we newbies may be stupid. We may be lazy. We may be ornery. :-) All this is surely often true. But knowing that and saying it doesn't solve the problem, which is, Daz is losing prospective customers it doesn't need to lose.
Yea! My draft is saved! I am proud to report I have learned this feature.
http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials
Thanks Chohole, but um, I experience the contests as more of the same, an avalanche of new information literally burying my interest. The whole point of my opening post is that for new users, more does not equal better. The teaching philosophy of the contests seems to be the same as the philosophy used in designing the interface, way too much, way too soon. Everything all at once. Hundreds of links leading in hundreds of directions on hundreds of topics. Less is more my friend, less is more.
Daz might hire a room full of people who don't know a darn thing about 3D or Daz. Sit the newbies down in front of Daz and watch what happens. My guess is that a key problem here might be that the Daz team simply knows way too much about Daz, which may make it really hard to see Daz through the newbie's eye.
Or, maybe newbies just aren't worth the bother. I could see that. The only real value we would seem to have to the Daz team is that we outnumber experienced 3D users a thousand to one. So, we're a huge pain in the butt, but also a huge business opportunity.
Hey, if Newbies weren't worth the bother why has DAZ 3D added a complete forum Section, just for New Users, and Made a group of people called Community Volunteers to run it and offer help to anyone who asks.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60/new-user-forum-guide#latest
The New Users section is extremely successful, and we have got a good many people up and running since it was incorporated into the Daz 3D forums.
Help>Home (sorry, it's the Home screen not the Welcome screen)
Chohole, I don't dispute any of your points. I'm sure you (Daz) have the best intentions, and have helped many people.
But the fact remains, Daz is still leaving most of the money on the table. I'm sure that most of the people who download and install Daz don't stick with it, and thus don't become your customers.
Any sales process chain is only as strong as the weakest link. A vendor can do lots of things really well, as you guys clearly do, but if the prospective customer gets defeated at any point along the process, the prospect is lost. And once that happens it no longer really matters that the vendor did many things very well.
I have sincere sympathy for the challenge the Daz team faces. You are trying to introduce a very complex task to a very large audience. I salute you for your confidence and ambition!
Do you have any professional educators on your team? Or are the programmers designing the interface and tutorials? If the later, it must be said having programmers design the interface and tutorials is very much like having professional educators code the software. If you wouldn't let a teacher code your software, why let a programmer do your teaching?
My constructive suggestion is that the weak link in your sales chain might be greatly strengthened by bringing on board professional educators whose job it is to break complex topics up in to an ordered sequence of bite size steps. There are smart people available who have spent their entire careers studying that process. Given the amount of money being left on the table, it might be worth it to invest in their skills.
Jake... this is the forum and what you are suggesting would need to be presented to The powers That Be. Which don't visit the forum often. Your pest option is to open a ticket. http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us
That said, I've been using DS for three years now, and didn't find the interface especially challenging or confusing. Honestly, I find using Word or Excel interfaces a lot more confusing, and for that, my employer made me take courses to actually learn how to use it.
I'm very greatful for the help I received here, and I can only second what was said about the New User Challenges.
The real challenge comes when you go into things like lighting, camera and composition, and that is something no "beginners interface" can help you with. It takes time to learn these things, and even more so if you want to dive deeper into things, like learning about shader and creating your own stuff. Personally, after three years, I know enough about studio to help other newbies like myself, but I haven't even scratched the surface of how to produce proper images in DS. Yes, I can put a scene together quickly, and pose cameras, characters, environment, light, but it doesn't create "instant great art". That is the really hard lesson, and no "make the user interface show four characters and three light options" will help you getting around that learning curve, and the tons of frustration you get when you buy content and realize that it's not as simple as "plug and play", and your pictures still don't look anywhere near good, and you just can't compare to other artists. This is my very personal experience, of course.
Hi BeeMkay, thanks for your feedback. Honestly, I feel no urgency about tracking down the Powers That Be, because it's not my money that's being left on the table. I'm not asking for a favor here, I'm providing one. If the Powers That Be wish to hear from their users, here we are.
Here's how my thesis might be proven or disproven. Two pieces of data would be required.
1) Daz requires signup to download the software, so they must know how many people are downloading.
2) It should be possible to track how many of those downloading then go on to buy something from the Daz store.
The issue being addressed in this thread is, how many Daz downloaders go on to become Daz customers? I'm guessing the percent is low, but I don't have access to the data and could be wrong.
If the conversion rate is high, then the opportunity is low, and my comments are not helpful. If the conversion rate is low, then the opportunity is high, and I'm discussing an issue relevant to the future of Daz.
I doubt the Powers That Be would wish to share the data, and I don't blame them for that. But that would be how to settle the question.
I'm a brand new user. I downloaded the software and was immediately offered an interactive lesson that taught me how to load a figure, dress it, pose it, add lighting, etc. I actually raved to my partner about what a wonderful setup Daz has for new users. Later they gave me bonus content for completing the lessons and sold me two premium figures for $10 each.
I'm sorry if I said things in a convoluted way, English is a foreign language for me. But what I tried to say is, you are here talking amongst peers. We here can discuss all day long about things here, but the chances that anyone from DAZ will read it are slim to none existent. That doesn't mean someone from DAZ won't suddenly show up and post something here, but in my experience, that does not happen very often. So, yes, DAZ wants to hear you, but the forum is not the best place for DS product update suggestions.
What you suggest might even get picked up if you suggest it at the right places, which is the service desk, more specifically, a request for more functionality. Or you could try and find a DAZler in the DS Beta thread, which they do visit after a new Beta is released. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/95436/daz-studio-pro-beta-version-4-9-3-71-release-candidate-updated#latest
Also, on your question... yes, the number would be low, but in my opinion, that has a lot to do with realizing that 3D wasn't what one wants to do, and the reality of it being very cost-intensive. And also, that the hobby is not as inexpensive as all that "free content" suggests. I've seen quite a few new users (and fell into that same trap myself) who had to come to terms with the fact that their system that works fine for Office and the occasional video is crashing and burning around you once you go into rendering.
And if the new user then gets around to buy a new computer, that's not the end of it. Purchases add up, even if you "live" on freebies and sales most of the time. How many people are seriously going to keep investing money in a hobby that is rather expensive, i.e. if you have them going down the road of buying pre-made content? The "occasional" user won't. Interest will drizzel very fast, especially when faced with the costs of having to buy a better computer, that won't sizzle and burn and crash all the time. I know I had to sit back and think hard, when I got into the hobby, if I was willing to make that financial committment for hardware alone. Even then, the PC I bought means long render times to get decent qualities.
As a new user, are you willing to wait several hours before an image is completed? When you want to do your animation render, and suddenly find out that rendering a 1 second clip will take you a full week? When the power bill goes up, and you drool over all the new things in the store that you can't buy because your budget won't allow it?
This were things I had to consider back then. As for the user interface... all that I had to learn was "Scene tab, Content Directory/Category, Parameter Tab, Surface Tab, Render Settings Tab". I had to learn how the content was organized, and I learned how to create custom categories from it that served my purposes and how my mind works best. I experiemented a lot. I took the lights and posed them differently, fiddled with the light and shadow parameters (everything was 3DL back then), and did the same with other options like camera, materials, etc. All that time, I was burning to render things that I really wanted to do. It took a long time until they looked at least a-quarter-way like I imaged them in my mind.
I understand if all this drivel is not really "helping" in regards to what you suggest. I'm just trying to say that the conversion rate is probably influenced by other things than just the easy peasy version of UI.
Just throwing a silly figure at you 17,667
That is the number of orders processed by Daz in one week in August (which is typically reckoned to be the slowest month for custom through the store)
If you have no desire to post your suggestions to Daz, then are you simply trying to tell your fellow peers your opinions? Daz, like most companies, has a feedback area in their ticket system. The link is listed below, and on every page, with the Contact Us link. Daz does not monitor the forums as a general rule, so to get your ideas before them, you need to use the system in place for this. I would recommend you submit a ticket.
Hi guys,
Here's a solution. If anyone reading this now or later feels the ideas presented above have some merit, feel free to claim them as your own (or not) and then pass the proposal on to whoever you think should have it. Or, this thread can die a peaceful death and sink in to the archives. I'm agreeable either way.
From my perspective, I'm pretty sure that as the 3D market continues to mature somebody at some company will likely have insights similar to the above. Whatever company that is will have a shot at becoming prominent in the industry, and then sooner or later I'll hear about them.
A number of folks have made the point that new users have to make peace with the learning curve as it is. Except that we don't. We can instead simply patiently wait for the market to meet our needs, as it inevitably will sooner or later.
When I first came online in 1995 you had to be a NASA scientist to make a website. Now your dog can easily do it. The same process will unfold in 3D, it's just going to take longer because it's a more complicated challenge. Daz has a good start in the right direction, and I salute them for what they've accomplished so far. When they finally get where they're trying to go, I hope to still be here to jump onboard.
Deleted.
This thread seems to have run its course.