coxy

Tag: gender pronouns

  • Adding pronouns to your Microsoft 365 profile

    Adding pronouns to your Microsoft 365 profile

    TDLR: I worked on a project at Microsoft to bring pronouns to user profiles in Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365.

    If you are an admin, you can find out how to enable pronouns in your organisation’s Admin Center.

    If you are a user, you can find out how to put your pronouns on your profile.

    Rewind the clock to mid-2019, myself and Margrete Sævareid at Microsoft Development Center Norway slowly started working on a new project; to allow users to add their pronouns to their Microsoft Office profile.

    At that time, the project was “unfunded” and so our job was to work around our day-to-day tasks and gather the necessary research and make the required presentations to the right people to get the project funded.

    As 2019 came to a close, we were sat in Microsoft HQ in Redmond with colleagues from all corners of Microsoft and LinkedIn, hosting an initial “kick-off” meeting.

    A short time later, in February 2020, we were both sat in the offices of Microsoft Research New England ready to undertake some fundamental research with esteemed researcher Mary L. Gray and the team.

    It’s been 3 years since the trip to Boston, but Microsoft have recently announced and listed pronouns as being something you can add to your Microsoft 365 profile.

    🎉

    A random selection of photos from the trip to Boston, MA, USA

    Since the inception of the project, there have been many people working on the addition of pronouns to the product suite – and I definitely lost track of who was involved throughout the process after moving teams within Microsoft and leaving this project behind towards the end of 2020.

    So, whilst I was not part of the team that finally got to launch the feature to the world, I feel so grateful that I was able to lay the foundations for this project. It was definitely a passion project of mine from day one, I was sad to move off the work, and I’m very excited to see how it develops.

    There’s a lot that I would love to share about the process behind the initial stages of this work, but I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say.

    I truly hope that with the new capabilities you feel like you are better represented at school or work – whether you are transgender, non-binary, or were simply blessed with a name that people commonly misgender.

    🥰

  • The Pronoun Icon

    The Pronoun Icon

    Having worked on a project for some time around gender pronouns, it became evident that there was no universal symbol or icon to represent the concept of a pronoun.

    The only icon that came up in online search results was the abbreviation “Pron” with a block of background colour. This is an abbreviation of an an English word.

    With an increasing number of apps and services starting to incorporate pronouns in profile options, creating a supporting symbol seemed appropriate. The abbreviation “Pron” is language-specific and wouldn’t work well internationally.

    I tasked myself to come up with an abstract symbol that can represent pronouns in a universal way. However, it had be flexible enough to showcase the diversity and full range of pronoun usage.

    The Pronoun Icon

    A diagram which explains the pronoun icon and why the symbolism of three overlapping circles work. Each segment created is labeled with They, She, He, or Neopronouns.

    The icon is a three-circle Venn diagram, rotated in a manner so that there is one circle on top, and two below. Each circle represents the three most common pronouns; They/Them, She/Her, and He/Him.

    The circle representing They/Them has been intentionally placed on the top. It’s a celebration of diversity and avoids a preference or priority to the most common gendered pronouns.

    The section of overlapping circles creates a central triangular figure composed of three interlaced arcs. This is also known as a triquetra. I use it to represent the lesser-used pronouns that fall outside of the top three; known as neopronouns.

    A personal pronoun icon

    A range of pronoun icons showing how the original symbol can be divided to represent your personal pronouns.

    The pronoun icon also allows you to customise the symbol styling to visually present your pronouns at a glance.

    By reducing and increasing the prominence of various parts of the symbol, it gives a glanceable insight into what a person’s pronouns might be once set:

    pronouns.design

    I went ahead and created pronouns.design which, over time, will be a set of guidelines and usage for an icon for pronouns.

    The aim will be to offer a range of downloadable assets and guidelines to help people get started with implementing pronouns into their digital product, apps and websites, or print material.

    I believe any good icon should work in black and white, outline and solid. It should work in flat colours and gradient colours. It should be able to work in almost colour, provided it meets colour contrast requirements, and by visible to the partially sighted.

    All this requires some work and some tweaking over time. But for now, I’ve shared a first version one of the icon and the website.

    Make the pronoun icon better

    An example of a pronoun icon in gradient format with some supporting text which reads 'pronouns'

    I would love to hear your feedback, so please leave your comments in the comments section below this post, @mention me on the fediverse, or email me on coxy@live.no