When studying existing virtual worlds, it is surprising to see how much written text they contain. Even the most "action-oriented" virtual worlds are forced to use text to express concepts such as location names, character names, and the representation of currency. Social networking worlds like Second Life have found text to be an indispensable part of the experience, from learning how to navigate to chatting with other users. If virtual worlds are founded on the promise of rich visual environments, why do they contain so much text? Because we have had the ability to write and read for thousands of years, it may be that nothing can take the place of written cues in the human experience. Written language is a mode of human communication buried deeper than many other representative media. We are mistaken if we look at the written document and believe that it is a relic likely to be left in the past. Text has persisted in all forms of information design, even as the World Wide Web was heralded as a mostly "visual" medium.
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