This paper explores how interface environments have an influence on novice users’ performance in social virtual worlds (SVWs), which are emerging user-centric three-dimensional cyberspaces. Despite their early popularity, SVWs have experienced that numerous new users leave the cyberspaces soon before they become long-term users. One possible reason is that unfamiliar interfaces of SVWs can be a barrier to novice users’ adaptation of the technology. To understand a role of interfaces in the users’ assimilation of SVWs, we examine an impact of three interface factors (presence, affordance, and feedback) on performance which is regarded as a yardstick for users’ adaptation of SVWs. Forty participants were recruited and went through one-hour experimental sessions with seven tasks in Second Life; they were also asked to answer a questionnaire. Findings indicate that while affordance and feedback are significant factors influencing novice users’ performance, presence has no impact on their performance
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