A Civic Business

As pointed out in the competition brief, the line between public and private space in virtual worlds can be very blury. Even in the real world, a notary blurs the distinction: It is on the one hand a business, but on the other an important civic service.

A Civic Function

Real world governments view the service of a notary to be very important to the running of a legal system, and they are highly regulated. The maximum fee that a notary may charge is set by law to be very inexpensive, making notarization a function available to all. It also ensures that it isn't so profitable a business (if it is at all) that it might be biased in any way.

Virtual Civics

In the virtual world Second Life, the real life operator imposes no overall system of law or governance. Residents of Second Life must create their own systems of law, government and civic behavior. The opening of the notary in Second Life is therefore an important civic event. It now provides a service that residents can use it to build larger structures of self-governance and law.

Nota Bene

While Nota Bene is a privately built and operated business, it's existance within Second Life provides a key piece of the foundation of a civic society. Within the Second Life forums, both the early discussion about having a notary and the announcement of the notary's opening were part of several larger discussions about possible legal and governmental institutions.

To visit and use the notary is to engague in an act of civics. The participants in a notarization are demonstrating that a virtual world can grow into one in which the society has deeper structure than the software that runs it.

Supporting the Community

The build itself has served as a meeting place to discuss the construction of civic and legal structures, both in theory and in practice. One such group has already established a presence in the notary: the SL Mediators, who hope to make mediation a viable method of dispute resolution with virtual space.

Going forward, the notary hopes to provide an open forum for the evolution of virtual civic structures, both as a focal point of discussion, and as architectural place for meeting.

Build Notes

Site

In the Second Life virtual world avatars can fly. When people wish to visit a location, they are immediately teleported to the nearest "telehub" and then fly the remaining distance. The notary design takes advantage of two consequences of this: First, the line of approach is generally well known. Second, access from the air is easier than from the ground.

The notary owns the two plots shown in turquoise. The open waterways on two sides of the notary build are right-of-ways and will not be built on. The empty plot is held by the notary to ensure that the approach line is not obscured.

The large scale design of the notary is biased toward the approach direction.

Open Plan

The design is open air: There is no reason in Second Life to have a roof, and no reason to have buildings which are entered via a door. Structural elements need to be justified by function and emotion, not by physics and engineering.

At the notary, one lands in the center. The flower design provides metaphor for where to land that is better matched emotionally to the notary than other landing targets such as bullseyes.

Signs

Signage plays a crucial role at the notary. In a virtual world, due to the freedom of design afforded, and the lack of established design vocabulary, signage is required to help orient and instruct.

At the notary, signs also serve the function of putting an 'info kiosk' everywhere: Touching any sign at the notary offers the user access to half a dozen documents about the notary including instructions, concepts, sample documents and technical details.

Operation

The operation of the notary is decidedly more complex than many other interactions in virtual worlds, such as buying a shirt or playing Tringo (a popular game in Second Life). Notarizing a signature takes several steps, each of which must be clearly understood by the user due to the seriousness of the action.

The major functions (notarization and verification) are distributed across the build, each with their own 'petal'. The build is it's own directory. Furthermore, the automated desks interact via three channels: spoken text, printed text and iconic graphics to ensure that it engages people no matter their primary modality.

Roofs

The original design of the notary had no roofs at all, allowing complete access from the air. However, in early testing it be came clear that users were uncomfortable signing a document in open space. Here is an example where the architecture of virtual space must bow to emotional response. The added glass roofs, despite their transparency, gave enough added enclosure to make the signing process feel safe.

While one needn't bow to the requirements of engineering in a virtual world, one does have to contend with the limits of the underlying software. In this case, Second Life doesn't allow the creation of single objects as big as required for the roofs or glass side walls, nor can such curved pieces be joined seamlessly if transparent. Hence, the metal spacers are there to hide the joins. As an added benefit, from the air they form a recognizable visual pattern.