Feminine Gamification Viewpoint: Interview with Margaret Burnett

Feminine gamification viewpoint: Interview with Margaret Burnett Podcast 8: Where to find inspiration for gamification? In a question of gamification this week we are honoured to have the company of Margaret Burnett distinguished professor in Computer Science at Oregon State University. She has carried out research in relation to gender inclusiveness in software use and developed a research methodology to test for potential stumbling blocks your users may face.   An Coppens: Hi, I’m An Coppens from Gamification Nation and I’m delighted today to have with me Margaret Burnett who is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University in the USA. Now, I’m so delighted to have her on board because her research focuses on end user programming, end user software engineering and gender issues in this type of context. Welcome to Gamification Nation today Margaret.   Margaret Burnett: Thank you, I’m delighted to be here.   An Coppens: Thank you. Now, I noticed you have Distinguished Professor as your title, how does that happen?   Margaret Burnett: Well, it’s quite an honour and I just received it this last spring so I’m still just immensely delighted about the whole thing. The university passes this honour out to 2 professors per year so I got it this last spring. The criteria have to do with the quality and the reputation of your research and your teaching and mentoring and whether you’ve really made a difference in some way. I have some awards on some of those fronts and a long history I guess that … A really long history. Anyway, so I won.   An Coppens: Fantastic, it’s a great honour to have you so shortly afterwards, we’re not just talking to a professor but a distinguished professor. I love that and congratulations also.   Margaret Burnett: Thank you.   An Coppens: Now, the reason that I came across you and the research you have done is because as my listeners and readers know is we work a lot on the feminine view of gamification and I look for research that’s been done in that field. When I came across GenderMag, I got really excited, I said, “I want to know what this is, how does this happen, how did this come about?” First of all, what is GenderMag?   Margaret Burnett: GenderMag is a method. It’s a process for software developers or UX people or anybody really with some say into how software is turning out. Anyway, they can use this method to spot aspects of their software—the software itself—that might not be as gender inclusive as they liked. GenderMag stands for Gender Inclusiveness Magnifier, so that’s what it’s all about.   An Coppens: Fantastic. How did it come about initially, is there a background story to it?   Margaret Burnett: Yes, there is, there’s quite a background story. It all started with my PhD student, Laura Beckwith who was seeking a PhD topic to work on in about 2002 or 2003. We came up together with the idea of possibly looking at how gender differences might come together with software itself. At that time, there was starting to be a fair amount of understanding in the academic community—not in industry yet—the academic community that there were gender differences that were starting to play out in the workforce and in higher education. But nobody had thought about software itself yet.   An Coppens: That’s really amazing that it actually is recognized first in the university world and then further down the line becomes of interest.