Books – Ideaplatz

15 Sep 2025

Author Cheryl Platz speaks about Opti-Pessimism at Design Matters Tokyo on the Game Development Strategy Guide book tour

Books, Talks

September 14, 2025 / Tokyo, Japan: Author of the Game Development Strategy Guide, Cheryl Platz, debuted her second new talk in two months as one of the closing keynotes at Design Matters Tokyo 2025. Entitled "Future Sight in Design: Using Process and Context to Solve the Right Problems," this talk focused on two case studies that demonstrated how the use of Cheryl's opti-pessimism framework for design ethics at scale, helped her and her teams to design around critical issues before they occured. About Opti-Pessimism The opti-pessimism design framework was first introduced by Cheryl Platz at her DEVit 360 2018 talk…

28 Aug 2025

New talk debut: Modern Motivators of Play

Books, Talks

Game Development Strategy Guide author Cheryl Platz was honored to debut her new talk, “Modern Motivators of Play,” as the kickoff to her book tour at McCaw Hall during the inauguaral SLICE (Seattle Loves Indie Creators Expo) conference on August 27, 2025. Cheryl’s talk expands on the Motivators of Play introduced in Chapter 1 of her book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, and covers some context that didn’t fit in the book. Talk Summary In the first portion of the talk, we cover more of the detail behind some of the many motivational frameworks that inform the Motivators…

27 Aug 2025

Author Cheryl Platz launches book tour for The Game Development Strategy Guide at Seattle Indies SLICE on August 27

Books, Podcasts, Press, Talks

Explore changes in player motivations backed by theory and data paired with ideas in Cheryl’s microtalk “The Modern Motivators of Play” at McCaw Hall SEATTLE, WA, UNITED STATES, August 26, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Author, game developer, and creative director Cheryl Platz is honored to be launching the book tour for her new book, The Game Development Strategy Guide: Creating Modern Video Games That Thrive, with a microtalk intended to help indie game developers recalibrate their understanding of what drives today’s demanding video game fans based on industry scholarship, research, and data - all while gamers and game developers from around the…

19 Aug 2025

Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast now available on all major platforms!

Books, Podcasts, Press

It’s time to level up your game development career by learning from a series of engaging and candid conversations with game development veterans passionate about building a better industry in Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast, launching today on all major podcast networks. Explore what it takes to create thriving video games and game development studios with host Cheryl Platz – creative director, faculty member in video gaming at Carnegie Mellon University, and author of the upcoming book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Video Games That Thrive. The first season of the Enduring Play podcast brings 10 of the…

01 Feb 2024

LinkedIn LIVE Recording Available: Design Beyond Devices Community Q&A

Books, Talksdesign beyond devices

On January 31 2024, Ideaplatz founder Cheryl Platz ran a community Q&A for LinkedIn followers that yielded a nuanced conversation about how her book has impacted her practice as a Design Director these past three years, as well as some very thoughtful questions from attendees about navigating stakeholder relationships when working in this space. Check out the replay at the LinkedIn event page. Future community events, based on community feedback, will be hosted on Zoom via Ideaplatz - stay tuned for further details and your chance to participate! Sign up for our mailing list or follow our LinkedIn page to…

14 Oct 2021

Voiceflow Keynote: Demystifying Multimodal Design

Books, Talksappearances, design beyond devices, keynotes, multimodality, public, vui

On October 13, 2021, Ideaplatz founder Cheryl Platz joined the Voiceflow community to share a keynote specifically targeted at practitioners in the conversational design space, aiming to share some of the insights from her book Design Beyond Devices to reveal how multimodal design complements that existing practice. How do you position your multimodal experience, and how do you extend your designs? Thanks to all who attended live, and thanks to Emily Lonetto at Voiceflow for all of her organizing efforts along the way! Catch up with the talk on YouTube or download the slides below. Ready to go deeper? Check…

06 Sep 2021

Free fall talks with Ideaplatz

Books, Talksbook club, design beyond devices, multimodality, public, voice design, vui

On September 1, Cheryl launched her newest keynote, "The Carousel of Progress: Adapting to a (Post) Pandemic World" to an enthusiastic response from the CHIFOO practitioner community. (Recording available to CHIFOO members.) This keynote is available for booking at your conference or event - reach out to us for more information. Still to come in early Fall: September 9 at 12 PM PT --Design Spaces Book Club: Design Beyond Devices Cheryl talks with folks who are reading her book about next steps to take when applying the content in her book. She'll answer audience questions, go through some of the…

18 Nov 2020

Capturing Customer Context – Free Downloadable Worksheets

Books, Workshops

In Chapter 2 of Design Beyond Devices, Ideaplatz founder Cheryl Platz lays out the importance of going beyond surface inquiry when doing customer outreach for multimodal and cross-device experiences. But how do you bring your stakeholders along when they think they understand everything about your customers? These 4 downloadable FREE worksheets are designed to jumpstart your own explorations. Either have team members print and complete individually during a workshop, or use them solo as questions to prompt your own preparations. Shared Understanding Baseline: What do you already know, what are the constraints, and what has already been done?Visualizing Context: Use…

11 Nov 2020

Virtual Book Tour: Fall 2020 Dates

Books, Talks

In the winter of 2020, I announced a tour that never came to be - a set of speaking engagements around the US in support of my upcoming book, Design Beyond Devices. COVID-19 had other plans, and each of those dates was cancelled. Instead, I'm bringing you a virtual tour - which means more price points and more opportunities for anyone to join me from anywhere in the world! In the fall of 2020, I'm hitting the virtual pavement to begin unveiling the content that I've poured into my upcoming book Design Beyond Devices. I've been hard at work on…

28 Aug 2019

Design Beyond Devices: Cheryl’s upcoming book for Rosenfeld Media

Books, Press

Exciting news: Cheryl has signed with UX industry stalwarts Rosenfeld Media to publish her first book, Design Beyond Devices, in late 2020. In Cheryl's own words: In Design Beyond Devices, I’ll explore the wide and complex systems, UX design, and service design required for truly multimodal, cross-device experiences. Whether you're grappling with multiple input modalities like touch and voice for the first time, or grappling with the end-to-end considerations for a multi-device ecosystem, you'll walk away with new frameworks and tools for deconstructing these complex problems into more manageable patterns and features. Ready to explore the final frontier of product…