The interface of the dashboard is very friendly and quite sociable. Its convenience is one thing in particular that makes the dashboard so sociable. Everything is just a couple button-selections away. This includes the best part of the dashboard: the Xbox Live blade. This could also be called the profile blade because it is, essentially, the same thing that appears in-game when the user presses the guide button. This is where your messages, friends list, and you gamercard information lie. Microsoft and the Xbox Live team have gone far and beyond expectations with their implementation of the Xbox Live system. This is evident through the profile blade. It represents three key characteristics–coordination, conversation, and awareness.
Conversation with another user is incredibly easy. To send a message to another user, you just have to select the Friends List and choose the user you want to message. Then you choose letters with a virtual keyboard or send a voice message. You can also open a chat session and talk to up to four people at once.
You communicate with teammates in-game to develop strategy and improve teamwork; you can do this from the dashboard in pre-game sessions. I can invite my buddy to a chat and we can discuss our plan for the night including what games we’re gonna play, which game types, etc. This can be done in a message, too. My buddy over the summer frequently sent each other messages to let each other know what time we were going to be on. We played a lot of co-op games, so it took coordination to be able to get through the games we were going to play. If I have an evening appointment, I’d message him and tell him that I’d be on at 8pm. That way, he could finish up the game he was playing before that, eat dinner, and be ready to go at 8pm.
Another characterstic prevalent in the blade is awareness. Some people change their gamerpics and mottos often enough to publicize their moods. I know that I can tell with a couple of my friends when they are in bad moods. One of them says that he only plays Halo 3 ranked matches when he’s mad because that’s when he is most effective in that game. Another friend only plays Oblivion when he has a big block of time. These habits (and messages) can be used to gain a sense of social context.
In conclusion, the Xbox 360 Dashboard is an excellent tool for communication and collaboration between gaming friends, and users can take advantage of the interface to gain peripheral awareness of their gaming world. Because of the extraordinary design and implementation, Xbox Live will continue to be the best mulitplayer experience in the console world.
