She probably worked on these DEI initiatives since she’s got Xbox’s “Gaming for Everyone” shirt on, and that’s the name of the program:
Accomplishing big things starts with one step - the opening of a single door. What door will YOU open today?
developer.microsoft.com
Create a product experience where customers feel they belong.
developer.microsoft.com
Create a product experience where customers feel they belong.
What this means:
We create product experiences with respectful expression.
- Respectful expression shows up in multiple facets of our work including:
- Creators - Ensuring we partner with and support a diverse community of content creators.
- Content - Ensuring our content tells stories that resonate with our diverse player base in-game, and in our marketing.
- Players - Ensuring our players feel seen and connected to meaningful experiences.
- We bring to life people and cultures within our products, from many diverse perspectives, recognizing that there is not a single portrayal of a person that could represent an entire community or culture.
Source: 2022 Google PC & Console Insights Report
Getting Started with Representation
How can you help customers feel belonging in your product experience?
Questions to Consider
- What steps have you taken to ensure characters are represented respectfully and authentically?
- Are you telling new stories or sharing new perspectives within the product experience?
- How have you validated assumptions you have made about your audience to check for blind spots or unintended stereotypes?
- Would you feel proud to show a member of a community how their culture/character is depicted within your experience?
- How are the wide range of customers depicted within your products and communications?
- Do all of your characters/player depictions look the same?
- What process have you used to validate how different groups of people or cultures are represented in your experience?
- Do you have a process to review key decisions with the lens of respectful expression?
Metrics: Measuring Progress
The metrics below are meant to help jumpstart thinking about how a team might measure inclusion for Representation. Think of it as an example and go beyond it to find the metrics that work best for your project. Engage Data Science and User Research teams to see what data is available to you. If the data you need doesn’t exist yet, it’s a prime opportunity to start tracking it and understand how to open a door to Representation!
- Demographic User Data: Breakdown of the product user base by demographic factors. Essential for understanding if the product resonates with a diverse audience.
- Community Engagement: Participation rates of underrepresented communities in forums, beta tests, or co-creation initiatives. Active engagement suggests that co-creation efforts are effective, leading to a sense of belonging among participants.
- Sentiment Analysis by Demographics: Analysis of user sentiment segmented by different demographic groups. Helps identify if certain groups have less positive experiences.
- Inclusive Content Ratio: The proportion of content featuring or catering to underrepresented groups. Measures the extent of representation in the product's content.
Xbox Store Multicultural Collections
The Xbox Store multicultural collections help players find content that’s meaningful to them.
Xbox Publishing Partnership with GLAAD
Xbox Publishing has a ongoing partnership with GLAAD to bring more LGBTQIA+ stories to our players.
And under: “Help Customers Feel Seen”:
Create & surface content that depicts diverse characters, stories and creators
- Create playable characters that reflect the broader population. Review how identities represented on screen (gender identities, races, sexual orientations, ability status, ages, and body sizes) match up to the broader population. Make sure that characters are not tokenized or stereotyped based on their identities.
- Review how identities represented in your product such as gender, race, sexuality, nationality, cultural, ability, age, and size compare to the broader global player population. Be intentional about which identities are present and highlighted according to what’s right for your product and market.
- Make sure that characters are not tokenized or stereotyped based on their identities. No person or character can be a monolith to represent all people with that identity.
- Practice inclusive casting for any talent required to bring representation to life in your product.
- Validate your execution for your Inclusive Listening Systems (consultants/advisory councils, user research).
