Social translucence of the xbox live voice channel

Abstract

In this paper we use the concept of 'social translucence' to understand users' initial reaction to, and use of, the voice communication channel provided by Xbox Live, We found that although users expected voice to be an advance over text-based communication, in practice they found voice difficult to use. In particular, users experienced difficulties controlling the voice channel and these difficulties are indicative of usability and sociability problems with the configuration of the voice channel in some Xbox Live games. We argue that game developers will need to address these problems in order to realize the potential of voice in online multiplayer videogames. We believe these problems can be addressed by designing the voice channel so that socially salient information is made available to participants according to interactional affordances and constraints that are sensibly designed and well understood by users. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2004.