Phil McClelland

As a User Experience Designer, Phil spends his days learning to understand people and the work that they do, and then finding ways to make that work more effective and satisfying. But as a long-time game nerd, he can't help but turn that same lens on the mechanics that underpin games--what works, what doesn't, and what that means for the experiences that games offer.At D2L, Phil works to improve the teaching and learning experience for millions of instructors and students. 

Phil first plugged into the Games Institute during his grad studies in UW's Systems Design Engineering, where he researched interaction techniques for group collaboration, using digital tabletop and tablet conversions of popular board and card games (e.g. Pandemic and Dominion). Phil remains connected to the Games Institute to share his passion for great interaction and system design in games.

In my role, I'm constantly seeing examples of how great teaching and great game design share many of the same principles. It's a reminder of the power of games to engage us, motivate us, and scaffold our learning toward that next goal… just within reach.