Dr. Yolanda A. Rankin, an Assistant Professor for the School of Information, will be presenting her paper “Exploring the Plurality of Black Women’s Gameplay Experiences” at the 2019 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction, May 4th – 9th in Glasgow, UK.

Few gender-focused studies of video games explore the gameplay experiences of women of color, and those that do tend to only emphasize negative phenomena (i.e., racial or gender discrimination). Dr. Rankin conducts an exploratory case study of the motivations and gaming practices of Black college women. Findings reveal that 65% of this specific population of Black college women enjoy the ubiquity of mobile games with casual and puzzle games being the most popular genres. Academic responsibilities and competing recreational interests inhibit frequent gameplay. Consequently, this population of Black college women represent casual gamers who report positive gameplay experiences, providing insights into creating a more inclusive gaming subculture.

You can read more about her work here.