UI of Destiny 2: The Character Screen
Destiny, the epic looter-shooter from Bungie, is a franchise that has been consistent on a few select things. Unquestionably, the art direction of both Destiny and its successor Destiny 2 has successfully realized a future where humanity has risen and fallen throughout our solar system. Bungie’s visual design team has realized terrifying hellscapes such as the dark depths of our moon, but it has also established a consistent and clean design system for its collection of menus and interfaces.
One of the most prominent of these menus is the character screen, where players can view, modify, and equip gear to their character, or guardian. I believe the Destiny character screen is a great example of good UI design, and I will be assessing its merits using the 10 Principles of Good Design, codified by Dieter Rams, the famed German industrial designer and academic.
While Dieter Rams achieved great success designing mainly physical consumer products, he distilled his knowledge and experience in the design field into principles that can be applied to virtually any design. Whether it’s a fancy coffee-maker or the digital interface for a cutting-edge smartphone application, there’s a good chance you can judge its design using most if not all of Dieter Ram’s principles.
So let’s see how Bungie’s character screen shapes up against the Principles of Good Design.
1. Good Design is Innovative
According to Rams, good design pushes the boundary of our understanding. It is designed with purpose, and while it may borrow from established, tried-and-true concepts, it is far from derivative.
What is established in Destiny 2 is a pretty common variation that can be seen in contemporary games where the main player character acquires items that augment player power and ability. Take Geralt’s inventory screen in The Witcher 3 or the inventory screen in Minecraft: Dungeons, and compare them to Destiny 2’s character screen and you’ll see a similar structure of a player character and item slots contextually located to where the player character would equip or use these items.
Where Destiny’s design stands apart and innovates is through its discoverability and ability to present tidbits of relevant information at a time. While there are filters for a large assortment of items in the other examples, Destiny’s design only showcases the inventory of helmets when you are hovering over that section.
The entire section of the screen comes alive, but only when the player desires to to modify, equip, or dismantle specific items. It keeps the design minimal, while the transparent gray boxes next to each item cluster tease that there is more content to explore.
2. Good Design is Useful
A well designed product is one that, of course, satisfies its intended function. Good design often steps outside the boundaries of its basic functions, and ties itself to feelings of quality and other positive traits.
The Destiny character screen is well-designed in the sense that a user can easily and intuitively browse items, as well as compare the value and usefulness of said items. Additional UI elements, like the item details page compactly display item attributes and power, while graphical representations of item stats visually display the difference between item abilities.
3. Good Design is Aesthetic
Aesthetic can mean a lot of things, and while it’s easy to conclude that good design is obviously pretty and nice to look at, it’s not always so simple. Designers like Dieter Rams believe that purity is most attractive, and that designs should reflect only their function, forsaking frills and excessive form. So what does this mean for Destiny’s UI?
As we’ve discussed previously, Bungie’s decision to keep their display clean and display more detailed information when only requested reflects this idea of pure aesthetic. The visual design is not without its frills, still maintaining a general futuristic and light-weight feel. Lots of games are thematic and infuse such themes into their UI, but in some cases those visuals can get in the way of actual content.
4. Good Design is Understandable
While simple consumer products like teapots rarely need an introduction, games often rely on signifiers, or prompts to indicate what actions can be completed and how. Bungie provides ample information on how to interact within their character menu system with button / key prompts.
5. Good Design is Unobtrusive
Good design supports, it does not supplant. As discussed in the aesthetic design principle, the design of Destiny’s character screen is simple enough that it supports the content it displays rather than obscuring it / getting in its way.
6. Good Design is Honest
Good design shows you exactly what an object / program does without overpromising and under delivering. In the case of the Destiny 2 character screen, how gear affects gameplay and player stats always needs to be plainly and clearly stated.
Stats and abilities have explanations presented on hover, increasing transparency between the player and game mechanics. While not an inherent design fault of the character screen, the mobility stat description is misleading in the way that it states it increases player movement speed, even though in actuality it only affects strafing speed and not sprint speed.
7. Good Design is Long Lasting
Good design weathers the test of time and outlives trends. While it’s difficult to predict the future, good design centers around a strong foundation which can be modified or built upon. Destiny 2 as a whole has changed quite a lot since’s Destiny 1’s launch in September 2014, however, the bones of the character screen are more or less the same.
8. Good Design is Thorough
Good design is thorough down to the most minute detail. Even with major overhauls throughout the past seven years, the character screen has clearly presented relevant information on each item in a player’s inventory. Additional information such as flavor text and additional statistics are presented in the detail sunscreen.
9. Good Design is Environmentally Friendly
While this principle goes beyond Destiny and more likely targets the sourcing, manufacturing, and recycling of the electronic components in your computer or game console, good design is ultimately environmentally friendly.
It’s important for designers to think even just a little bit about the problems of tomorrow, and not just the problems of today. Design with intent, longevity, and resourcefulness in mind.
10. Good Design is Minimalist
Lastly, Dieter Ram’s last principle states that good design is as little design as possible. An over-designed approach signifies a lack of understanding of who and what a product is for.
Destiny as a franchise is a lot of things and it’s stumbled quite a bit since its inception, however, its design team have created a unique identity and consistent visual language that gets the job done. It’s minimal in the sense that it does not steal the show, but it’s noticeable in the way that it can be enjoyed and appreciated.
The character screen for Destiny and Destiny 2 is a piece of really great design that displays and supports a tremendous amount of content without diminishing the experience of gearing up for the newest raid, building the fiercest competitive loadout, and preparing for the next adventure.
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