Design Heuristics - Computers as Theatre - page 170

own . . . the game world's value system is put forward as one of success
achieved through violence, rewarding criminal behavior and reinforcing
racial and gender stereotypes.
This is probably the sternest language Flanagan uses in her book; gen-
erally, it is extremely scholarly, thoughtful and insightful—a must-read for
everyone who is serious about interaction design, especially games and in-
teractive art. That said, few could contest her comments quoted here.
DESIGN HEURISTIC
Examine your assumptions and biases. Everybody has some.
Understanding Audiences
One of the most common diffi culties that young designers have is a com-
pulsion to design for themselves. I know that might sound crazy. Of course,
you want to use your own aesthetic and skill, to exercise your own no-
tion of play patterns, and to build something that will be pleasurable. But
you are not necessarily designing it for yourself, unless you are designing
for people exactly like you. In fact, that's what happened in the early days
of the videogame industry. The industry was vertically integrated all the
way up to the audience. Young men designed games for young men under
the direction of slightly older men. The games were sold to men in male-
dominated retail environments. In those days, it was a truism that women
and girls did not play videogames. That may be because vanishingly few
were designed with women and girls in mind, at least until the brief surge
of “girl games” in the late 1990s.
Today, women and girls make up the bulk of the market for casual
games, and many more are playing games like WoW , Minecraft , and even
MMFPS games. But that doesn't mean our work is done. People are differ-
ent. Obvious differences are gender and age; others include socio-economic
status, ethnicity, personal interests, and politics. Who are you trying to reach?
Human-centered design research can help you understand your in-
tended audience in both general and subtle ways. If you are working for a
big corporation that does not have a design research department, you will
be fi ghting an uphill battle to convince your publisher that design research
has value, especially if they have been successful doing exactly what they