Concrete data #3
After having posted the spreadsheet on some slack channels I had received various responses either as comments or private messages to me. There were people supportive of my research but one person in a particular was not and gave a reactionary response accusing me of promoting “fake news”, my data being unreliable as it was not using a “scientific method” and saying “shoddy theories are as good as superstitions and gossip”. It was hurtful to read. Thankfully, there were people on my side telling the person to respond with useful feedback and guidance to which the social science researcher had. His opinion had offered me another perspective to this research such as interviewing people of various backgrounds and not just minorities, to “consider structuring the conversations to have the same context each time. This makes comparison and summarization of the opinions more sensible and defensible.” , to question how much people identify themselves with race “for some of them, their own race may have a little influence on how they understand their own identity.” and to be open about the subject because “correlation is not causation”. I jumped into this project with no hypothesis but an open mind to finding out the reasons behind why this is happening.
I had asked for people to reach out to me to be interviewed also on the post and through LinkedIn. I was fortunate to have interviewed a few incredible women trying to make a difference in the industry. The women interviewed had pointed out a few things to me which I mention in the pdf report link at the bottom. However, I wanted to create an animation as a starting point for addressing, introducing the subject. I originally wanted to create a game to give that sense of frustration that minorities face but due to time constraints, I made a frame animation on Photoshop. The look of the animation is inspired by a retro game of Mario because it’s was a popular game with a character assigned to do a task and can show clearly that frustration. Not only that, the start of digital games were designed in a retro style and diversity is beginning to be embraced in companies so using this style symbolises that fresh start or perspective to what is out there.
Below are the different designs of the character from Mario himself to the most feminine looking character I could design which was adjusted each time as a result of feedback:
The animation below shows a black female version of Mario coming out unexpectedly in the first couple of seconds because the user sees the Super Marios Bros. sign expecting Mario to come out. But, once the character steps out she transforms the sign to Afro Mario Sis. The game begins by setting the task of her finding a job in tech which is presented as a question mark. The frustration is shown as she attempts to open question mark box but nothing is happening but after a while, a message appears to which most companies would imply in their messages to minorities. Then the character walks off but the opportunity still remains there. Then, in the end, a statistic is shown in regards to companies addressing unconscious bias. Unfortunately, there is no music because of copyright of the Mario music.
The animation is intentionally playful to appeal more to a younger audience so they would want to click onto it but to create a kind of shock factor at the end by showing that statistic. The reason behind targeting a younger audience is to make them aware of this issue and want to make a change in the future creating longevity in addressing the issue. A friend had suggested creating something which promotes longevity because he found out that allegedly Lambrogini had given Marvel for one of their movies 3 of their cars to just crash, to make kids watching the movie to aspire to become wealthy so they could buy their car.
This video is just the beginning to my research which I would like to extend outside of this project just for university. I thought about writing an article on Medium and following Oliver’s suggestion (2019) of designing an article too, inspired by weaponised design. However, creating this would suggest that I have finished my research of this subject and have come to a conclusion but I still haven’t so I have created an online PDF which will allow me to carry on my research and update the document as I broaden my knowledge. But, Medium and Youtube are good platforms to promote my project and spark discussions to assist with my research.
The cover of this document was inspired by Michael Myers – Pixel art https://www.behance.net/drawsgood however what I have done differently is matching the colour of the background the character’s uniform to show how one may try to adapt to an environment but will stand out and have to go through a number of steps to pass a hurdle. him I am no social science researcher or have the right qualifications because of that I have not published a report, nor a research paper but a form of the narrative almost like a journal which unveils all my discoveries. However, I am a UI/UX student who will be facing this real-world issue and can not afford to be blindsided by this.
https://indd.adobe.com/view/23b4c73f-c62f-4c20-8a34-73f9684f1146