Tina Chan Will Make Her Debut at CanUX 2023

More Canadian content is on the way in 2023.

 UX Research Methods for the Development of Marginalized Characters
} Nov 3-4, 2023   TBA / 30 MINUTES

Authenticity workshops (AWs) leverage consultants with topic-specific expertise or lived experiences to improve the realism and sensitivity of designs that represent under-represented identities in gaming. Examples include developing characters who are living with disabilities, from indigenous communities, or who are not cis gender. While strategic AWs facilitate genuine co-creation of characters with communities they represent, and present opportunities for cultural leadership, AWs can also build Games UXR influence into the pipelines of atypical partners like Art, Narrative, and Marketing. This talk walks through methods and learnings from designing three playable characters for Rainbow Six Siege (an operator with prosthetics, an indigenous pilot, and a trans woman engineer) at Ubisoft Montreal, and then finalizes with a toolkit to conduct AWs.

After this talk, the audience should be able to:
1. Identify where Games UXR methods can improve the authenticity of game content
2. Articulate the importance of authenticity to production teams with historical examples in the games industry; and 3) Leave with a toolkit to start running AWs

 Speaker Bio: Tina Chan

Tina Chan is a UX Researcher with a background in videogames currently working on Apex Legends at Electronic Arts AAA subsidiary Respawn Entertainment. Previously, she worked on Rainbow Six Siege at Ubisoft Montreal. Her research interests include empowering collaboration in games, such as through gameplay design, governance systems, and designing for inclusive play.

Tina completed her Masters at the HCI+Health lab within the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute, and her research exploring the effects of avatar representation, and using gamification to encourage peer support in health applications has been published at HCI venues like CHI and CHIPlay.

For more info, you can follow Tina on LinkedIn.

*Image credit: Tina Chan