A Guide for Creating Inclusive Digital Avatars

This Inclusive Avatar Guide, developed by the Berkeley Haas Center for Equity, Gender, & Leadership (EGAL) in partnership with Meta Reality Labs, is an evidence-based resource created to support anyone looking to design inclusive avatars for virtual experiences. Building avatars that are inclusive means ensuring that everyone can see themselves and feel represented when showing up in digital spaces. This guide outlines research-backed insights and recommended practices to consider when building inclusive avatars. However, despite the extent and depth of research, it is important to acknowledge that no matter how much variety or options are offered for building avatars, it is impossible to capture every variance in identity or satisfy all user needs. The intended audience for this guide includes product teams and content designers working on products related to virtual identities, including avatars, image searches, labeling, etc.

Why is it important to create avatars inclusively?

Avatars shape people’s ability to express themselves and build community in online spaces.

With the recent proliferation of virtual communities and platforms, digital avatars are becoming increasingly important tools to represent people’s identities and self-expression.

Users’ experiences and expression in virtual spaces are impacted by the choices they are able to make when building their avatars, and the language they encounter through the asset labels.

Research also finds that people will change how they interact in virtual spaces based on what their avatar looks like — this is known as the “Proteus Effect.”

How was this resource developed?

A multidisciplinary, systematic literature review, which spanned research from linguistics, anthropology, behavioural sciences, and human-centered computing (citations are provided in the footnotes.)
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A landscape analysis of existing products across the tech, video game, and cosmetic industries that seek to represent and label human appearances across the gamut. The products are U.S.-based, but developed globally.
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Interviews with Meta researchers working on building inclusive avatars, as well as interviews with experts who build products with a focus on improving representation and inclusion in digital environments, including those who use screen readers.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the experts we interviewed from across the tech industry, academia, and from LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Go to the Guide