A Chatlands chat room is a place where the text conversations between users appear in speech balloons above something called an "avatar". It's been described as "a digital artspace where your avatar can sit in and chat with other players".
In Chatlands, you click on your avatar to change the image being displayed, called your "pose", or to change which direction your avatar is facing.
The chat room control panel allows you to do things like go to the domain map, check to see who else is online, manage your friends list, send direct messages to other players, and so on.