<aside> 👊 Cheryl Platz is a Director of User Experience (Player Platform) at Riot Games, the Author of Design Beyond Devices, and a Multimodal design pioneer & educator.

Her time working on Amazon Alexa, Echo, Microsoft Cortana, Windows Automotive, and the Nintendo DS has put her at the forefront of multimodal user interface development for years. Her experience covers end-to-end game production: from pitch to initial design, from first milestone to final publisher certifications.

👀 Linkedin

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Table of content

1. Cheryl’s personal journey into her current role
2. Cheryl’s current roles and responsibilities
3. Challenges with multimodal design and designing user/player experiences
4. Accessibility in the context of designing multimodal experiences
5. What could the future of multimodal design look like
6. Advice for students interested in incorporating multi-model design into their practice
7. Cheryl’s favourite books/designers

👊 What was your personal journey into your current role*?*

My user experience journey started when I heard **Randy Pausch talk about the field of HCI** when I was trying to decide between going to school for art or computer science. I ended up coming to CMU, where I studied computer science with an additional major in HCI. I also underwent a year of grad school study at the Entertainment Technology Center, where I studied more about game design, screenwriting, and storytelling. It was also during my time at CMU that my love affair with all things Pokémon began – I found Hey You Pikachu on the N64 to be a life-changing look into the completely profound differences in the way voice interactions can impact us as humans. That ability to speak to Pikachu directly - and what it did for me emotionally - carried with me as I made design decisions on games like Disney Friends (DS) and when working on other voice experiences later in my career.

Image credit: Hey You Pikachu

My video game career began with my time at Electronic Arts/Maxis and the Sims, and extended to running game teams for Griptonite Games. I chose to leave game development in 2007 to stretch my wings into other fields. A major part of that exploration was my many years working on large scale enterprise software experiences, like my time as Design Lead for the Azure platform and Azure Marketplace.

But in addition to enterprise, I also had the opportunity to work on consumer products with unique combinations of cutting edge hardware and software like Windows Automotive, Cortana, and eventually Amazon’s consumer-focused Echo product line. I’m best known for my Amazon work, as I had the opportunity to shape the pitch for the initial ideas for the Echo Look and I designed the notifications system for the entire Alexa cross-device platform. I returned to the game development industry in 2021, when I accepted my current role as Director of User Experience for the Player Platform at Riot Games.

👊 What are your current roles and responsibilities?

As Director of User Experience for the Player Platform at Riot Games, 80% of my job is to run a team of 14-16 UX designers supporting game adjacent and game agnostic experiences — through apps like Riot Mobile and Riot Client, Unreal components that support multiple games, and player identity and commerce systems that support all of our games. Part of my team also works on developer portals for both internal Riot developers and our external development partners to support Riot products with their third party products.

I am also the Craft Lead for User Experience at Riot, which takes up about the remaining 20% of my time. In this role, I support our Riot-wide community of approximately 70 UX designers by defining a culture of healthy communication and the open sharing of best practices across boundaries. My responsibilities also include consulting on job architectures, promotions, and other UX career topics; defining improvements to our recruiting processes, and plenty of DesignOps work like Figma administration and planning.