Role and Contributions

To contribute to the ongoing discourse on gender-inclusive language and challenges faced by non-native English speakers and ESL learners. I co-designed “Shibu” a Role-Playing Game (RPG), with two other Ph.D. researchers.

As the production lead for "Shibu", my role was central to guiding the project's vision and execution. My responsibilities extended to crafting the game's narrative and organizing playtesting sessions to gauge and enhance user experience and educational impact. Collaborating closely with my team, we leveraged an iterative development process, heavily reliant on player feedback and playtesting, to refine gameplay and narrative. Leading the project, I prioritized tasks based on their impact on our educational objectives, ensuring our game remained engaging while fulfilling its instructional purpose.

Timeline

The project spanned approximately 5 months, during which we developed and tested two game prototypes, currently advancing with industry collaboration. The timeline brake down as follows:

• Initial research and ideation phase: 1.5 months
• Game development: 2 months
• Recruitment: 2 weeks
• Conducting research: 2.5 weeks
• Survey: 1 week
• Analysis: 1.5 weeks
• Report: 1 week

ResearchGoal

Our research sought to explore the effectiveness of using games as a medium to familiarize players with gender-inclusive pronouns and encourage their practice. This question emerged from a combination of previous research, and absence of any standarizd or formalize pedalogical resources.
The goals of the research project were as follows:

• Investigate user perceptions and interactions with the platform, focusing on its narrative and gameplay mechanics.
• Identify any visual or textual elements that may inadvertently misrepresent or offend individuals.
• Assess whether players gain an understanding of gender-neutral pronouns through their experience with the game.

ResearchMethodology

For this study, I used a two step testing process on our two game prototypes to make sure they were welcoming and effective in teaching.

• Phase 1 : Expert Evalutation Study

I recruited five individuals who prefer to use gender-neutral pronouns. They played our game and were later interviewed (average time 15 min) to critique the game’s narrative, dialogues, and visuals. I chose this approach because it gives us in-depth feedback from individuals who really understand the issues we're trying to address. This helps us make sure our game is respectful, avoid misrepresentaion and implicity biases.
Based on their feedbakc, my team and I made revision strategies. We updated the visualis to be more inclusive and changed the game from being puzzle-like to more like a chat. This was to make sure players could focus on learning about using gender-neutral pronouns without getting distracted by complexities of puzzles.



• Phase 2: Interviews with Non-Native English Speaker

Once our second prototypes was ready, I recruited ten individuals whose were non-native english speaker, to see if they found the game interesting and if they could learn from it. All the 10 individuals were later on interviewed (average time : 20 min) to get their feebacks on how overall experience and acceptance of platforms. This step was important because interviweing our participants right after playing meant they could share fresh thoughts. Plus, by interviewing directly comapred to survey/scales, we were able ask for more details whenever their answers seemed a bit unclear.

RecruitmentProcess

For this study all participants were recruited by posting invitations links in community channels of discord. No compensation was provided to any participants.

For the phase 1 our recuirtment criteria was:

• Age : All age group no restrictions
• Geography: the US only
• Language: English
• Prefer ot use gender-netural pronouns

For the phase 2 our recuirtment criteria was:

• Age : All age group no restrictions
• Geography: the US only
• Language: Indiviual must have basic knwoledge of english but their mother toungues must not be English

Analysis and Synthesis

After conducting the playtest, we (research team) engaged with participants through a 20-minute interview survey. This survey was designed to capture their reactions to the game and gather opinions on its potential to outdo traditional orientation methods. Questions also probed their thoughts on the use of pronouns within the game. Utilizing design tools, such as Figma, we systematically organized and analyzed these interview insights. This analysis helped identify areas for game improvement, particularly in design, storytelling, and functionality.

From our analysis, several key findings emerged.

• First, there's a need for a more robust feedback mechanism to ensure players learn from their experiences, as our current system falls short in evaluating this. Interestingly, a significant portion of participants (4 out of 10) managed to avoid using any personal pronouns during play, indicating a need to refine our narrative approach.
• Secondly, while most participants (7 out of 10) found the game engaging than conventional orientation sessions, our method for measuring their experience needs enhancement.
• Lastly, Despite instructions on pronoun sensitivity, most players still defaulted to male pronouns for the Editor character in post-game interviews. This contrasted with their behavior towards Shibu, the protagonist, whom they addressed with neutral pronouns once they recognized a preference for them. However, this sensitivity did not extend to other non-player characters, who were often referred to with gender-specific pronouns. This feedback underscores the importance of revising our narrative and script to promote a more inclusive and educational player experience.

SelfReflection

This project started more of as personal journey to underscore the ongoing discourse about the effectiveness of e