StarCraft II — AAA Game UI Design

Designing UI for a live AAA game

My work on StarCraft II spanned interface design, interaction design, and visual systems across a large and constantly evolving game experience. I created the UI mockups and established the visual language used to bring new features, game modes, and supporting systems into a cohesive product experience.

The challenge was not simply making individual screens look polished. New interfaces had to feel unmistakably StarCraft while remaining understandable across very different contexts, from competitive play and progression to social features, content discovery, training, and commerce.

The goal: create interfaces that felt native to the StarCraft universe while giving players clear, usable paths through increasingly complex game systems.

Challenges

Three constraints shaped how the work got done.

1

Brought in at the 11th hour

Leadership asked me to move teams late in development because the UI was not on track to meet Blizzard's quality bar. With limited time remaining, I needed to establish a stronger visual direction and help get the UI ready for production.

2

Designing at AAA scale

The UI needed a cohesive visual language across very different experiences, including navigation, social features, campaigns, progression, training, Arcade, and commerce.

3

Cross-disciplinary production

UI changes affected developers, artists, animators, technical artists, sound designers, and other teams, creating significant downstream dependencies.

One visual language across very different experiences

StarCraft II required UI patterns that could stretch across navigation, content discovery, competitive systems, social experiences, training, progression, and commerce without losing visual coherence.

Global Navigation

A consistent top-level structure gave players access to major game modes while allowing each area to maintain its own visual identity.

StarCraft II main interface — **Global Navigation:** A consistent top-level structure gave players access to major game modes while allowing each area to maintain its own visual identity.

Campaign & Content Selection

Large visual choices allow players to understand content, progression, and ownership state without turning the experience into a traditional menu.

StarCraft II campaign selection interface — **Campaign & Content Selection:** Large visual choices help players understand content, progression, and ownership state without turning the experience into a traditional menu.

Collection & Commerce

Dense product information, ownership states, pricing, and visual content had to coexist while retaining the cinematic tone of the game.

StarCraft II collection interface — **Collection & Commerce:** Dense product information, ownership states, pricing, and visual content coexist while retaining the cinematic tone of the game.

Social & Chat Interaction Design

StarCraft II's social experience had to accommodate very different types of players and different levels of engagement with chat.

Less social → More social

Leave Me Alone

Off

Prefers solo play and can leave chat entirely.

TV Noise

Passive

Sees conversation scroll by without opening chat.

Watcher

Pinned

Can keep a readable conversation open while playing.

Talker

Expanded

Can expand chat for active conversation.

StarCraft II home interface with no active chat — **Opt-Out State:** Players can opt out of chat entirely.

StarCraft II pinned, compact chat interface — **Pinned Chat:** Players can pin chat open for persistent, easy-to-read conversation without taking over the interface.

StarCraft II expanded chat interface — **Expanded Chat:** Players can expand and pin the conversation while primary navigation remains accessible on the left.

UI design inside a multidisciplinary game team

AAA game UI is inherently collaborative. Interface decisions affected visual art, technical implementation, animation, sound, gameplay, and the broader player experience. I worked across disciplines to move concepts from mockup to implementation while maintaining a consistent interaction and visual direction.

UI & Art

Established visual direction and translated game-world aesthetics into usable interface systems.

Engineering

Worked through implementation constraints, interaction behavior, and the realities of building UI inside a live game.

Game Teams

Coordinated with the disciplines responsible for gameplay, animation, sound, content, and supporting systems.

Maintaining coherence as the game expanded

As StarCraft II expanded, interface work increasingly crossed feature and team boundaries. The visual language and interaction patterns had to scale with the product rather than being reinvented independently for every new feature.

This meant balancing consistency with the distinct needs of each game mode, coordinating across disciplines, and giving teams enough structure to build new experiences without making every screen feel identical.

Across the StarCraft II experience

The work extended across competitive play, onboarding, social features, content discovery, commerce, campaign experiences, and progression.

StarCraft II training interface — **Training:** One of the many modes unified under the same visual language, alongside competitive play and progression.

StarCraft II Arcade interface — **Arcade Interface:** A distinct game mode built within the same unified visual system as navigation, training, and commerce.

StarCraft II campaign interface — **Campaign & Content Selection:** Large visual choices help players understand content, progression, and ownership state without turning the experience into a traditional menu.

StarCraft II league promotion interface — **League Promotion:** Communicates competitive progression and accomplishment with the visual weight players expect.

Making achievement feel like an event

Competitive progression is more than a status update. The interface also has to communicate accomplishment and give important moments the visual weight players expect from the game.

StarCraft II promotion animation — **Promotion Feedback:** Combines progression information with a more cinematic presentation to make achievement feel like an event.

Players noticed the difference

UI work often succeeds quietly. In this case, players explicitly commented on the interface changes after release.

"The new user interface looks A LOT better. Thanks!"

Player response

"OMG. I love this UI update."

Player response

"This looks great, guys. I love these changes."

Player response

"It looks so much better!"

Player response

Player reactions to StarCraft II interface changes — **Player Feedback:** Reactions to the interface changes, shared after release.

A visual system built for a growing live game

Project Outcomes

Established the visual language: Used across a broad set of StarCraft II interfaces.
Designed UI across the full experience: Navigation, progression, social systems, training, campaign content, Arcade, and commerce.
Created scalable interaction patterns: Built to extend as new features and content were added.
Worked across disciplines: Translated UI concepts into a cohesive live game experience alongside art, engineering, and game teams.
Generated direct player feedback: Interface updates received explicit positive reception after release.