I had a quick play with Google Lively this morning. I’m going to avoid the obvious what-the-hell-is-Google-doing-releasing-a-shit-imitation-of-Second-Life question that everybody else is asking and instead look at some of the usability issues I encountered.

I signed into Lively with my normal Google account and was then prompted to choose a username. I tried ‘tamlyn’ and click ‘Check Availability’ and was met with the following:

The error is a bit small and in the wrong place but it’s visible enough. So I tried adding a dot:

This message makes no sense. Firstly it doesn’t tell me what’s wrong. Then it lists a whole load of rules for choosing a valid username, none of which I have broken! So I tried again and, this time, succeeded:

Except that the success message is displayed in the same place and in the same red colour as the previous error messages. Rubbish.

Once I managed to sign-up, the first thing I was offered seemed to be some kind of Hebrew virtual sex room which seemed a little out of place for a site which is unlikely to appeal to anyone above the age of 14. Undeterred I tried a few other rooms but couldn’t get any of them to work.

I must admit I really don’t know where Google are going with this product.