Dec

Game UX Summit 2020: UX friends online

by Celia Hodent

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Date and Time

Fri, December 11, 2020

8:00 AM – 6:00 PM PST

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Location

Online Event

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 1 day before event

Eventbrite's fee is nonrefundable.

Event description

Light version of the Game UX Summit: one day of relaxed panels, talks, and sharing within the game UX community. Online (Zoom).

About this Event

With the pandemic, we couldn't make the Game UX Summit 2020 (hosted by Bungie) happen. As we're still figuring out when we can resume in-person events, I (Celia Hodent) wanted to propose a relaxed day of talks, panels, and sharing around game UX. I also wanted it to be the occasion for students and young professionals to ask questions and receive guidance (there are several sessions throughout the day dedicated to answering your questions).

See the final program below. Twitter: use #GameUXsummit and @GameUX_Summit

Code of conduct. All attendees and speakers must read & respect the code of conduct: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M6MAIv5Vd5bBbMaTrNwu9TX03Uyp5EwpKOB__LcRjSs/edit?usp=sharing

The $5 fee will be used for close captioning work. Any remaining money will be donated to a gamedev charity. If you cannot afford to financially participate in this effort, you can use the discount code FREEpls. The number of free tickets being limited, these are exclusively reserved for folks who cannot otherwise afford the participation fee.

This event is ENTIRELY powered by volunteers. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to all the speakers and event helpers for being so generous with their time. I hope that you'll all have a wonderful day of sharing!

Final Program #GameUXsummit 2020

All times are in PST / GMT-8

Preamble - 8am-8:55am: Ask Us Anything! With Anouk Ben-Tchavtchavadze (Senior UX Designer at Riot, She/Her), Fey Vercuiel (UI Lead at Jagex, She/Her), Jasmin Dahncke (Senior UX Designer at Mainframe Industries, She/Her), Coraly Rosario (Senior UX Designer, She/Her), and Celia Hodent. Session dedicated to answering students' and young professionals' questions. We can also give feedback on 1-2 resumes / portfolios (registration required, see below). This session WILL NOT be recorded so that the discussion can stay candid and relaxed.

9am-9:15am: Welcoming words by Celia Hodent (Summit Founder & Chair, She/Her) & Jennifer Ash (Design Lead at Bungie and host of the next Game UX Summit in-person event, She/Her)

9:15am-9:45am: Talk "Building on rock" by Ian Hamilton (Accessibility Specialist, Independent, He/Him). A look at how the game accessibility field has evolved over the past year – how the landscape has shifted, where the industry is currently at, and where it needs to head in future.

9:45am-10:40am: Fair Play Alliance Panel. The Fair Play Alliance is a global coalition of gaming professionals and companies working together to develop and share best practices in encouraging healthy communities and player interactions in online gaming. This panel, made up of Fair Play Alliance executive steering committee members, will discuss the goals of the FPA, recent projects, collaborations, and resources made available by the FPA, and some of the things to look forward to from their group. Moderator: Natasha Miller (Senior Research Scientist at Blizzard Entertainment, She/Her). Panelists: Rob Lewington (Senior Director of Safety Operations at Twitch, He/Him), Nate Sawatzky (Trust & Safety Lead at Supercell), & Kimberly Voll (Co-Founder Stray Bombay Company, She/Her). FPA twitter handle: @FairPlayA

10:45am-11:40am: Fireside "Game Design + UX Design: Better Together". A fireside talk on why game design and UX design need each other. With Nida Ahmad (UX Designer at Netspeak Games, She/Her) and Marina Díez (Creative Director at 3ofcups Games, She/Her).

12pm-12:55pm: Ask Us Anything! (or lunch break) With Mike Mariano (Lead UX Designer at Stream Captain, He/Him), Davison Carvalho (Art Director at Amazon Studios, He/Him), James Berg (Sr Games Researcher at EA, He/Him), and Celia Hodent. Session dedicated to answering students' and young professionals' questions. We can also give feedback on resumes / portfolios (registration required, see below). This session WILL NOT be recorded so that the discussion can stay candid and relaxed.

1pm-2pm: Panel "Diversity & Inclusion : Job-Agnostic Allyship and Tips to Support Initiatives". Moderated by Mélissa Canseliet (UX Research Project Manager at Ubisoft, She/Her). Panelists: Rebecca Cohen-Palacios (Director and Co-Founder of Pixelles, Founder and Director of Game and Colour) & Jessica Murrey (CEO/Co-Founder W!CKED SAiNTS Studios). During this discussion, two trailblazers in diversity and inclusion in the digital industry will share their views and advice on questions including : How, regardless of the position in any studio, can one become an ally of diversity and inclusion? What barriers can we encounter while working on diversity and inclusion initiatives in the video games industry and how to overcome them? How would you appreciate the economic factor regarding the subject of diversity and inclusion: advantage or disadvantage to convince studios executives to onboard strongly?

2pm-2:40pm: Fireside "How did you start in game UX?" Candid chat with Grace Ling (Designer at EA, She/Her) and Pat Dimaandal (UX Designer, They/Them) about how they started their journey in game UX. Moderated by Celia Hodent.

3pm-3:55pm: Fireside with Heather Chandler (Interactive Game Developer, She/Her), Darren Sugg (Creative Director & Game Designer, He/Him), and Celia Hodent. Former co-workers on the Fortnite team chat about production, game design, and UX.

4pm-4:55pm: Panel "UX Through Uncharted Waters". Join Niantic's UX designers Coraly, Victor, and Will for a casual chat about the challenges and learnings experienced throughout 2020. They'll share some of the process, methodology, and pipeline changes they've had to make on their teams to adapt to a work-from-home status in a global pandemic. Panelists: Coraly Rosario (Senior UX Designer at Niantic, She/Her), Will Chan (UX Designer at Niantic, He/Him), & Victor Hu (UX Designer, He/Him)

5pm-5:15pm: Parting words and announcements. Celia Hodent and Jennifer Ash

Encore - 5:15pm-6:10pm: Ask Us Anything! With Anouk Ben-Tchavtchavadze (Senior UX Designer at Riot, She/Her), Alan Shen (Principal Experience Design at Riot, He/Him), Jennifer Ash, and Celia Hodent. Session dedicated to answering students' and young professionals' questions. We can also give feedback on resumes / portfolios (registration required, see below). This session WILL NOT be recorded so that the discussion can stay candid and relaxed.

Students, aspiring game UXers, and young professionals: To sign up for a chance to show your portfolio / website / resume, please fill out this form https://forms.gle/tJSPREeC35Qy7Mu49

Note that time will only allow us to give feedback to 2-3 people per Ask Us Anything sessions. The feedback will be exclusively on the format of your material (how to present your work, what might be missing to grab the attention of recruiters, etc.) rather than your art/design itself.

Speakers list

Alan Shen: Principal UX Designer at Riot Games (He/Him)

Anouk Ben-Tchavtchavadze: Senior UX Designer at Riot Games (She/Her)

Celia Hodent (Game UX strategist, independent, She/Her): Founder and Chair of the Game UX Summit. celiahodent.com / Twitter: @CeliaHodent

Coraly Rosario (Senior UX Designer at Niantic, She/Her): Hailing from Puerto Rico, Coraly’s adventure first started in graphic design and teaching. Later, her innate interests naturally evolved into a passion for UX and UI in games, working with companies like Beyond Games (Brink of War), Fingerprint Play (Samsung Kids), Scopely (Wheel of Fortune), while continuing to teach others about experience design and user research in the games industry. She is currently a Senior UX Designer at Niantic LA as well as VP of the Puerto Rican Game Developers Association (PRGDA), an initiative focused on growing and supporting the game dev community in Puerto Rico and beyond. Twitter: @corapiki

Darren Sugg: Game Designer & Director (He/Him). Former Creative Director of Fortnite. He worked with great people on the coolest worlds: Fortnite, Marvel, & Lord of the Rings. Twitter: @DarrenSugg

Davison Carvalho: Art Director at Amazon Studios & Visual Development Artist (He/Him). Twitter: @colorblindmess

Fey Vercuiel: UI Lead at Jagex (She/Her). Twitter: @feymakes

Grace Ling (Designer at EA, She/Her): Grace Ling is a Designer at Electronic Arts and the Founder & Design Lead of the Design Buddies community. She is also a Computer Science & Engineering student at Santa Clara University. Outside of design and community building, she has her own art business, and creates content for social media and her blog. She also enjoys drawing, running, and traveling. You can check out her work at: https://grace-ling.com/. Twitter: @Candyleaf_

Heather Chandler (Game Development Consultant at Heather Makes Games, She/Her). During her 23-year career in video game development, including 3 years as a Sr Producer on Fortnite, she’s led teams at Epic Games, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Activision. She’s published several books and articles on making games. As a game development consultant she helps teams create and launch games of any size and on any platform. Heather is a strong advocate of STEM education, and is committed to providing opportunities for students of all ages to get excited and engaged with technology. Twitter: @HMCmakesgames

Ian Hamilton: Accessibility specialist, Independent (He/Him). Game accessibility specialist with a 13 year background in raising the bar for gamers with disabilities, though advocacy and awareness raising – writing, speaking, organising events, community building – and consulting, working with studios from the smallest indies to the largest AAAs, with publishers, platforms, industry and government bodies. Co-director of GAconf and coordinator of gameaccessibilityguidelines.com. Twitter: @ianhamilton_

James Berg: Senior Games Researcher at Electronic Arts (He/Him)

Jasmin Dahncke: Senior UX Designer at Mainframe Industries (She/Her)

Jennifer Ash: Design Lead at Bungie, host of the next Game UX Summit in-person event (She/Her)

Jessica Murrey: Ceo/Co-founder W!CKED SAiNTS Studios. At age 24, Jess was an award-winning storyteller, running awareness campaigns against child, domestic, and sexual abuse. She spent the next seven years with Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest dedicated peacebuilding organization, training young activists in some of the most hostile places on earth in Social Change Communication. Currently, Jess is a Common Ground Activist and CEO of W!CKED SAiNTS Studios, designing wickedly fun interactive story games that happen to prompt behavior change and real world action. She is the creator and author of the text-based interactive story game “Pitfall”. Twitter: @jessicamurrey

Kimberly Voll: Co-Founder at Stray Bombay Company (She/Her). Twitter: @zanytomato

Marina Díez (Creative Director at 3ofcups Games, She/Her). Marina Díez is a Spanish award-winning game designer based in London, UK. She's the CEO and Creative Director at Three of Cups Games, a games studio based in London. Besides, she is the lead game designer of Dordogne at Un Je Ne Sais Quoi Studios and game designer for Me-säätiö in Helsinki, Finland. Twitter: @Ninfa_dp

Mélissa Canseliet: Customer Experience User Research Project Manager at Ubisoft Montreal (She/Her). Melissa graduated in Neuroscience before working in research at the University of Oxford. After graduating from HEC business School in Marketing Intelligence, she started to work in video games and got specialized in UX strategy. Her expertise in cognitive biases and UX, combined with her personal experience, made it very natural for her to advocate for diversity and inclusion and to help onboarding more people and raising more voices on these topics wherever she works. Twitter: @Melissurf

Mike Mariano: Lead UX Designer at Stream Captain, (He/Him). Twitter: @marianomike

Natasha Miller: Senior Research Scientist at Blizzard Entertainment (She/Her).

Nate Sawatzky: Trust & Safety Lead at Supercell

Nida Ahmad (UX Designer at Netspeak Games, She/Her): Nida Ahmad does all things UX at Netspeak Games. With a focus on accessibility and psychology, she creates playful and usable user experiences. She is dedicated to making the industry a welcoming place, having served as a reader for the BAFTA Young Games Designer Awards and speaker at industry events on the importance of UX in Game Development. She is also part of the founding team of POC in Play, an initiative to increase the inclusion and retention of People of Colour in the industry. Twitter: @NidaAhmad_

Pat Dimaandal (UX Designer, They/Them): Pat Dimaandal is a UX Designer who previously interned at UX is Fine! and Telepod. They have also assisted Celia Hodent with Ethical Games for research. They are currently creating a game demo, with 20 students & new grads around the US, and a science-fiction book coming out in Summer 2021. Author of Veracity: Where Mortals Lie [Coming Summer 2021]. Twitter: @pat_dimaandal

Rebecca Cohen-Palacios, Director and co-founder of Pixelles, Founder and Director of Game and Colour. Rebecca entered the digital industry about a decade ago and contributes amazingly to diversity, equity and inclusion in the video games industry in Canada and beyond. She's co-founded two major nonprofit organizations supporting respectively: women in games (Pixelles) and people of color in the Montréal games industry (Game and Colour). In addition to her advocacy work, Rebecca is a Senior UI Designer, having shipped 6 major titles, as well as also being implicated in various other initiatives to mentor, support and lift up new developers. Twitter: @rebheartsyou

Rob Lewington: Senior Director of Safety Operations at Twitch (He/Him).

Victor Hu (UX Designer, He/Him): Victor got his master's degree from the University of Michigan majoring in human-computer interactions, where he started his journey of AR/VR design. Victor has worked in a couple of AR/VR startups before joining Niantic. After joining Niantic, he helped design a couple of AR features in PGO including AR multiplayer, reality blending, and AR scan.

Will Chan (UX Designer at Niantic, He/Him): At Niantic, Will works on Pokémon GO and the AR Platform. Prior to this, Will was a Product Designer at Facebook, where over his four years there he worked on user notifications, subscriptions, and experimentation tools.

A HUGE THANKS to all speakers and helpers who volunteer their time to make this day of sharing happen <3