I provide game UX strategy advisory services (see my main areas of expertise below) and I would be happy to assist you with your project, or run private workshop sessions at your company. I speak English and French. If you are interested in knowing more, please contact me via this short form and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
I also regularly conduct public masterclass sessions (in person and online).
Main Areas of Expertise
- Game UX strategy: I can assess your video game’s (or product’s) user experience early in development to ensure it has all the necessary usability and engagement ingredients (such as intrinsic motivation considerations), and your production pipeline has the necessary people, processes and tools (i.e. design thinking process), to offer a compelling, successful and ethical experience to your audience. I can also conduct UX evaluations for your product or game in development and provide suggestions for improvement. Note that I’m not a UX designer (I do not design user flows, wireframes, interaction, or information architecture); I exclusively advise on user experience strategy at a project or company level.
- “Gamification” (although I prefer to call it “playful learning”): I help companies and organizations improve their designs, systems, and processes to bring engagement and fun to their product or service. I mostly work on educational products, health tech, behavioral change products (i.e. to help your users develop healthier habits), social or environmental impact.
- Training sessions: I can train your teams on game user experience (cognitive science foundations, game UX pillars, usability, engage-ability, user research, analytics, design thinking, etc.) See below some workshop examples. You can also sign up to one of my upcoming public masterclasses (they are in French or in English, and are either tailored to game industry professionals or professionals outside of games who want to understand how to apply game UX to their product or service).
- Applied cognitive science for ethical design (human factors psychology): video games (& tech in general), education, inclusion, ethics.
- Implicit biases and their impact in our life (e.g. “fake news”) or workplace (e.g. diversity, inclusion).
- Ethics in tech and in the game industry: inclusion, diversity, identification and avoidance of dark patterns / shady practices at the core of the so-called “attention economy”.
Do you have a project you’d like to discuss with me?
Please fill out this form.
Consulting Services
Here are a few examples of ways we can work together:
Implicit Biases & Inclusion Workshop
The human brain is plagued with cognitive and social biases that we mostly don’t realize exist. They implicitly influence our decisions and influence us into making irrational (and detrimental) decisions. This lecture or workshop can be adapted to either be an introduction on unconscious biases and how they affect our life and workplace, or be more targeted to help organizations improve their diversity and inclusivity. Read a description of the workshop here.
“Celia provided us with her expertise on implicit biases and the way to tackle them more efficiently. Disneyland Paris employees truly enjoyed understanding human biases better and getting tips on how to avoid them by rethinking their hiring and promotion processes. The workshop was very thorough while very concrete, with a lot of examples from everyday life. We received great feedback from Celia’s sessions and participants were able to apply what they had learned in the workplace.”
– Cecile Balta, Talent Acquisition and Solutions, D&I Director, Disneyland Paris
“Celia’s approach to training revealed how pervasive Unconscious Bias is around us and within ourselves. She offered unique insights into the realistic challenges and opportunities of what is required for change through her first-hand experiences working in tech/games. I walked away more educated and passionate about the work ahead!”
– Liz, People Business Partner, Scopely
Game UX & Cognitive Science Workshop
The objective of this training session is to provide participants with tools to significantly improve the experience of the game they are developing, and to increase its likelihood of being successful and engaging. The workshop covers how the brain works (overview of perception, attention, memory, motivation, and emotion) and offers an introduction to game UX, including how to concretely apply it to your studio or your project and develop a UX strategy. Read a description of the workshop here.
“Celia Hodent truly opened our eyes on how gamers perceive information and what drives them to play. Her excellent examples and game references sparked many conversations around our studio, ranging from UI layouts to player onboarding to how we encourage player retention. We look forward to bringing her back!”
– Brian Allgeier, Director of Experience, Insomniac Games
Psychology, UX, & “Gamification” Workshop
The objective of this training session is to provide participants with tools to efficiently increase the likelihood of any product to be intuitive and engaging. It’s an adaptation of the Game UX workshop described above to apply the lessons from successful and engaging games like Fortnite to the development of any product, system, or service. The workshop covers how the brain works (overview of perception, attention, memory, motivation, and emotion) and offers an introduction to design thinking and UX principles. This workshop offers perspective on what “gamification” truly entails for non-game products. Read a description of the workshop here.
“The workshop completely changed my understanding of intrinsic motivation. Our UX is a full success: kids can’t stop playing pure math tasks at Struggly!“
– Alina Schlaier, Design Director, Struggly
Customized Keynotes (in English or in French)
I can give a lecture at your company or in a public event. It can be an introduction to Game UX and cognitive science, or target a more specific topic (usability, engage-ability, user research, engagement & motivation, inclusion, ethics, etc.). Languages: English or French.
Consulting Work
I provide advisory services on game UX strategy (see my main areas of expertise above). Contact me and tell me what your needs are (please note that I’m not a UX designer). For example, I can help you build the UX strategy for your studio or project, help you build your user research lab (if you are an indie studio, I’ll find ways to allow you to develop user research practices with a low budget). I can also conduct a UX evaluation of your project or game, and give recommendations to improve it given the experience you want to offer, the audience you are targeting, your constraints, and your business goals.
Bio
Celia Hodent is recognized as a leader in the application of user experience (UX) and cognitive science in the video game industry. Celia holds a PhD in psychology and has over ten years of experience in the development of UX strategy and processes in video game studios. Through her work at Ubisoft (Rainbow 6 franchise), LucasArts (Star Wars: 1313), and as Director of UX at Epic Games (Fortnite), she has contributed to many projects across multiple platforms, from PC to consoles, mobile, and VR. Celia is also the founder and chair of the Game UX Summit, advisor for the GDC UX Summit, and founder of the ethicalgames.org initiative. Celia is the author of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design (2017), The Psychology of Video Games (2020), What UX Really Is: Introducing a Mindset to Great Experiences (2021), and co-editor of Game Usability: Advice from the Experts for Advancing UX Strategy and Practice in Videogames (2022). She currently works as an independent consultant, helping studios increase the likelihood of their games to be engaging and successful.
