The lesson from Dead Space

During these Christmas holidays I’ve played a while Dead Space.
EA Sci-Fi survival horror is a pretty good game per se, with a great atmosphere and the right amount of adrenaline. But one thing really hit me. Is the interface design. The interface in Dead Space is tightly embedded into the game world.

The energy bar in son the back of the main character’s suit, along with stasis indicator (stasis is a sort of bullet time, useful to manage some crowded situations). The bullet count is visible on the gun only when you are aiming.

The result? Much less clutter, much more immersion in the game environment. Exactly the same could be done in web applications, embedding into the environment all the interface stuff you can, and leaving more focus on the actual content. A good example comes from this article by Ryan Tomayko, inspired by some observations regarding the iPhone interface made by Tufte.