Destiny 2 finally has a release date, 8 September 2017, and I’m super excited. What better occasion to tell you a bit more about one of my favourite titles?

Destiny is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. It’s a multiplayer FPS (first person shooter) with RPG (role playing game) mechanics which came out back in 2014. I didn’t start playing until sometime last year and have missed out on a lot of content since its release but that’s fine. I’m not a one of those gamers who need to unlock all the achievements and collect every single item to enjoy the game.
In saying that I wasn’t going to wait that long to get the sequel this time around and jumped on the pre-order for Destiny 2.

Why I enjoy Destiny

It obviously reminds me of Halo which is still one of my all-time favourites on Xbox. This should come as no surprise since Bungie is behind both franchises.

I like space and that’s exactly where Destiny’s story takes place. From movies like Gravity to books like The Martian to games like Halo I really enjoy being immersed in that environment. It’s like having a preview of the future. Honestly if people like Elon Musk have serious plans to colonise Mars this might become reality sooner than we think. In Destiny you can explore entire planets by foot or on your hovering Sparrow racer. On Mars the vibe is entirely different from the Moon and discovering new areas while completing missions keeps you busy for hours on end.
The reward for your troubles and slain enemies is loot. Being a fan of the Diablo series by Blizzard and RPG’s in general, it’s the first time I saw two distinct genres overlap such a great way. I highly recommend you check it out.

Besides the gameplay, one of the things that appeals to me the most in Destiny is the user interface. It’s really clean and quite different from other games in the genre.

Swiss style in a sci-fi interface

The designers at Bungie chose to stay away from traditional sci-fi interfaces where people expect bright colours on mostly dark backgrounds with bits of tech randomly animating.
Instead they used Swiss typefaces like Futura and Neue Haas Grotesk together with clean shapes and clear visual hierarchy. It’s refreshing to see so much care put into typography and details like loose tracking on titles feel very natural.

You’d think that this visual treatment would clash with traditional elements in the game such as the map which looks like old seafarers cartography. However that’s not the case as these two styles are able to co-exist without one overpowering the other. In the example below the map in the background is slightly faded out in order to allow the mission locations to draw all the attention.

Free moving cursor and hover states

The look and feel is a lot closer to what you would find on a web site than in a game. A prime example of this is the cursor that allows players to freely move around the screen instead of tapping through options using the analog stick in a very linear way. This allows to declutter the interface since elements can be positioned anywhere on the screen.

Another example is the use of tooltips that appear when players hover over items. That way the interface remains clean even though there is a lot of content on the screen. Allowing the players to control the information they want to see makes for a great user experience and is enabled by the use of the cursor.

The result is a very quick and intuitive way to browse through content-heavy menus. Bungie has really pushed the boundaries of game UI that not only looks but also feels great. Better yet, there is even a companion app for your phone that lets you do all your inventory management on the go.

Drawit is a user interface exploration imagined by MIT Media Lab Research Assistant Marco Exposito. His bachelor’s thesis project takes visual programming to a whole new level.
In fact, it allows you to create your custom interface by drawing shapes on a tablet. These shapes are defined by the user and can be seemingly random. They then connect to physical objects like a lamp and allow you to change its properties remotely. In the example above, a big circle represents the lamp and a smaller darker circle acts as a button. Drawing a line between these two shapes essentially connects them with one another and make interactions possible. Linking multiple physical objects together is just as easy.
I really like how this approach makes no assumptions on the users background and can be whatever they want it to be. This method of user input appears to be the purest form of UI customisation.

The talented (experimental) interface designer Jinha Lee who is known for amazing projects like ZeroN and SpaceTop recently presented his latest work for Samsung.
It’s called MediaSquare and the idea behind it is to break the traditional ratio of one user per device. A TV would no longer be limited by a single remote for example. Just like having several keys for a single car, users could seamlessly access the TV through various controlling devices such as phones or wearables.
Although the example shown in the video above of people constantly switching music during a party is not the best example, I can see this providing a great experience for gaming or collaboration in general.

In a recent update to the Android app, YouTube has introduced a new main navigation: tabs!
The standard side navigation is gone. Yes, it’s that hamburger icon which is common for Android apps and adheres to the Material Design guidelines by the way. To me this is a welcome change considering tabs drastically outperform a side drawer when it comes to global navigation as Luke Wroblewski points out. It’s hard to deny that the previous iteration was bloated and difficult to use efficiently, especially if you were a power user.

Although Android apps frequently make use of tabs, they would be relegated to a secondary navigation. This is in contrast to its major competitor iOS, which has claimed tabs as primary navigation since its launch.

Is this move an exception in the Android universe, carefully guided by analytics or are we witnessing signs of regret in regards to a primary side navigation which may not be as obvious on first glance?
Only time will tell. In the meantime I’ll have to get used to how weird those tabs look on the iOS version of YouTube.

I’m an avid Spotify listener and even the recent release of Apple Music couldn’t sway me away. The team behind Spotify just keeps improving the product (and the brand) with well designed and relevant features. Songs matching your tempo while running or previewing songs on long tap are just some of my favourites from the past. Enter “Discover Weekly” which is essentially an entirely personalised playlist based on your own listening and on other user’s playlists with similar tastes. Apparently it’s supposed to become smarter over time and the more you listen, the better it gets.

One of the main reasons I started using music streaming services in the first place was for exactly that - music discovery. I really liked Rdio’s approach which Spotify kind of adopted but this new playlist is just brilliant and gives me something to look forward to every Monday.

It’s available across all platforms and behaves like any other playlist, except it resets every week so make sure to save the songs you like!