Deep Representation in Tell Me Why - Deborah Hendersen, Microsoft - GRUXonline
Channel: GRUX SIG
Date: 14/12/2020

Deep Representation in Tell Me Why
This talk will discuss how UR supported the inclusion of a transgender protagonist in Tell Me Why to ensure that the representation was respectful, recognizable, and approachable. This topic was a challenge, though often for reasons that had little to do with methods. It was hard to know how to think about the intended experience – what were appropriate goals, how (or should) participant data be leveraged, what did success look like for the product or the UR? I’m going to talk through each of these, including some practical detail around how we built a transgender panel & the questions we used to assess LGBTQIA inclusion, but with a large focus on audience breadth and how to understand representation as another skill-axis in your game.
 
Deborah Hendersen a Principle User Researcher with Xbox, the Studio Lead for Publishing which this year released Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Tell Me Why. I’ve been in the games industry for nearly a decade, and before that got my PhD in Cognitive Psychology by studying the different between fiction and nonfiction at Stanford.