
Now, in addition to games, avatars are a staple on social media and other virtual platforms. The first time it was used as a term to represent the user’s identity onscreen was in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar in 1985.

The earliest use of the term avatar in a computer game was in the 1979 role playing game Avatar by PLATO, which was inspired by earlier versions of dnd. Why should we care about avatars and inclusivity? This article covers some common missteps, shows why good avatar design matters, and lays out real-world examples of better avatars in action. Since this is a favorite subject of mine, I decided to create an all-in-one guide to better avatars.

Social apps play a crucial role in society’s evolving norms around identity, and one component of this is the imagery used to represent individual users on various platforms, generally known as avatars. In a world that is increasingly digital, human connections are as likely to happen online as offline.
