Fortnite Chapter 6 has gotten off to a pretty strong start, adding new permanent modes with Fortnite OG and Ballistic, dropping a full-sized Godzilla on the island, and ushering in the game's Hatsune Miku era. But Chapter 6 Season 2 is just around the corner, bringing with it a whole new slate of attractions. With a few days to go before Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2 starts, here's everything we know so far.When does Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2 begin?Season 1 is currently scheduled to come to a close on February 21 at 11 PM PT/ 2 AM ET. That would mean that Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2 should begin a few hours later on the morning of Friday, February 21.Will Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 1 have a live finale event?The Jan. 31 update added some interesting items to the Fortnite game files, including many indications that Season 1 will end with some sort of ambient live event on the battle royale island to bring the season story to a close. What exactly the event will entail is still a mystery, but the first stage of buildup has begun--the NPC Daigo has moved on from the spot in the Nightshift Forest where he's been battling demons all season and has taken up new residence by the unused portal in the mountains above Warrior's Watch, and that is where the big finale will go down.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Physical Edition - PS5 & Switch $35 - $40 | Releases June 13 Preorder at Amazon The cult-favorite Legacy of Kain series finally returned after a long slumber with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered last year. The collection launched digitally on console and PC back in December 2024, but soon fans will be able to add it to their shelves with the upcoming Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered PS5 and Nintendo Switch physical editions launching June 13. Preorders for the standard and Deluxe Editions are available now at Amazon. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Physical Edition - PS5 & Switch $35 - $40 | Releases June 13 Both physical editions of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered are surprisingly affordable. The standard edition is just $35, while the Deluxe Edition is just $50 and packed with extra collectibles. Here's everything included in the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Deluxe Edition:Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered base game (PS5 or Switch)Exclusive Steelbook CaseThe Art of Nosgoth Art BookOfficial Soundtrack CDCollector's Box Preorder at Amazon Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered - Deluxe EditionThat's a solid package for just $50, but if you only want the game and don't need all those extras, you can grab the standard PS5 and Nintendo Switch editions for just $35. Preorders for all versions are live at Amazon, although the PS5 standard edition is currently unavailable. It should be available again soon, so keep checking the links. All other versions are in stock.Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered Physical Edition PreordersDeluxe Edition (Switch) -- $50Deluxe Edtion (PS5) -- $50Standard Edition (Switch) -- $35Standard Edition (PS5) -- Temporarily UnavailableLegacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered includes enhanced versions of Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2, which originally launched on the PS1 and PS2 respectively. These games follow Raziel, a vampire-turned-wraith on a quest for revenge against his maker, the eponymous Kain, across the fantasy realm of Nosgoth. Both games feature all-new graphics--with the option to swap back to the original PS1 and PS2 graphics on the fly--gameplay tweaks, and in-game galleries full of art and behind-the-scenes materials. While the physical editions are only available for PS5 and Nintendo Switch, you can also grab the digital version on all consoles and PC. PC players can even save if they grab the game at GOG, where it's currently discounted to $22.49 (was $30).Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Witcher is a series that draws heavily from Eastern European mythology. The Witcher games are based on the books by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, and CD Projekt RED, a Polish game development studio, has remained faithful to the lore and setting of the books. As such, many of the monsters found in The Witcher games, including The Witcher 3, are drawn from Eastern European mythology. The Witcher 4 is likely to be no different, withThe Witcher 4's trailer featuring a monster, a bauka typical monster from Eastern European legend.

Marvel Rivals fans aren't thrilled about the game's upcoming changes to its ranked system, leading to considerable backlash online. Marvel Rivals has historically allowed fans to climb the ranks through each season, though the way players progress is all about to change. While players may be used to losing a few ranks with the start of a new season, Marvel Rivals will soon begin to reduce ranks even further, with developers announcing these will be adjusted in the middle of a season as well as at the start of one.

Cyrus is a trainer card thats taken over battles in Pokmon TCG Pocket. In the video games, hes the big boss of the devious Team Galactic and a major antagonist in the Sinnoh generation. Ever since the Space-Time Smackdown expansion hit TCG Pocket in January, hes also become a popular card in several decks that follow the games meta. Cyrus is a super flexible card and has something to offer loads of decks. This Pokmon TCG Pocket guide explains why we think hes a solid choice for so many looking to shake up their decks. Why Cyrus is one of the best cards in Pokmon TCG PocketCyruss card effect is pretty straightforward. Here is the verbatim description of what it does: Switch in 1 of your opponents Benched Pokmon that has damage on it to the Active Spot.You can use Cyrus once per turn before you attack with your active Pokmon. When played, it allows you to pick a Pokmon with damage on it from your opponents bench and put it in the active spot. If your opponent has two or more Pokmon with damage on the bench, then you get to select which one to move to the active spot. Its simple, but super powerful since it creates a game where you cant save Pokmon from imminent elimination by bringing them back to the bench.Of course, the bench hasnt been perfectly safe for a while. Several existing cards like Lumineon, Zebstrika, or Articuno ex can damage Pokmon on the bench directly. Lumineons Aqua Liner attack can do 50 damage directly to a bench Pokmon and Articuno exs Blizzard does 80 damage to the active Pokmon plus 10 damage to each benched Pokmon. Abilities like these arent to be taken lightly, but theyre a bit easier to counter on the bench since the damage output isnt as high as a direct attack from another Pokmon. (Ive saved Pokmon with healing cards like Potions and Erica before.)In contrast, the Cyrus trainer card makes it impossible for people to tuck cards away onto their bench. You wanted to play a strong glass-canon type who can do damage and then sneak away? Too bad, Cyrus will drag them back out. You wanted to tank some damage and switch out as you prepare another Pokmon with energy? Thats also a no. Even stall decks that make use of Druddigons Rough Skin ability and the Rocky Helmet Tool Card also dont fair well with Cyrus, since that strategy requires those Pokmon to take some hits to deal damage.In the past, Ive noted how great the Sabrina trainer card is. She can still be pretty useful in certain situations, but your opponent still gets to pick which Pokmon to switch in after you play it. Cyrus, on the hand, does not give a single shit. Just go grab any damaged Pokmon and finish em off. So if youre looking for a trainer card to stuff your next deck with, Id highly recommend Cyrus.

Dont shoot the messenger, but Valentines Day is coming up quickly. Its happening Friday, Feb. 14, and if youre looking to share an experience with your valentine this year in addition to whatever else you might have planned, consider one of Legos floral bouquets. It has a vast selection, with each one providing simple instructions for building with a partner. Once complete, the stemmed arrangements make for a great display, and can even be trimmed, ensuring theyll fit in any planter or vase you have lying around. Better yet, several of them are discounted in time for Valentines Day, but your valentine doesnt need to know that.While all of our selections are available from a variety of retailers, its worth noting that buying directly through Lego will nab you perks. More specifically, if you become a Lego Insider (its free to join) and make purchases before Feb. 12, youll get twice the usual amount of points, which can be redeemed for discounts on future purchases. Looking past Valentines Day for a moment, becoming a Lego Insider is a good idea, as it gets you access to exclusive sets.To help you find the ideal arrangement for your valentine, you can filter the options below by price and by how many pieces each Lego set includes, the latter of which will correlate with how long it might take to put together.

How Niantic utilizes emotions to manipulate player behavior.My bookcase, top shelf so you know itsgood.One of my favorite Pokmon is Trubbish, a tiny trash bag full of personality. Trubbish claims this spot for many reasons: for being from the region based on my home of New York City, for rightfully roasting the city as dirty, and in no small part for all the undeserved hate received upon its initial reveal. This silly little guy is just a toothy cutie with so much love togive.One of the great things about Pokmon as a brand is how every single creature is a favorite for somebody somewhere. The series has a curious way of bringing together a diverse assortment of people through shared passion. Pokmons staying power stems from the attachments we form with our creatures. I still have Pokmon caught and trained over decades in digital storage. The thought of parting with any of my massive collection gives me no amount of pleasure.That very same power stemming from emotional bonds is also utilized by the mobile spinoff Pokmon Go to harness its own unique power: the ability to be so poorly designed yet so deeply addictive. Niantic, the developer of Pokmon Go (PoGo) twist this strength to their advantage, using it to hook players through repeating cycles of gain and loss. Players become ensnared within an ecosystem designed to encourage the chase of that next high through the apps use of time-limited manufactured scarcity. The scarcity, in turn, causes FOMO, the fear of missingout.Please dont misunderstand. I very much enjoy Pokmon Go; its my favorite addiction. As a player myself, I write this article holding both love and fear inside me. I deeply love the Pokmon brand as well as my creatures contained within the mainline series games and mobile PoGo app. I also feel fear, specifically of some form of retaliation. The developer has a demonstrated pattern of treating players with disdain and responding in unpredictable, often unhelpful ways.As a designer however, I cannot help myself, questioning and dissecting the mechanics utilized to keep me coming back for more. Despite the realization I am often not having fun engaging with gameplay mechanics, WHY do I keep playing? What does the app actually offer? Well, it offers FOMO. A seeming lack of respect for players. A mediocre to poor user interface. Inconsistent accessibility advances. Shifty data collection practices. And yet, despite it all, I still find myself thinking about the app first thing in the morning and right when I close my eyes atnight.Pokmon Go launched in 2016, revitalizing the Pokmon brands popularity to levels not seen since the Pokmania of the late 1990s. Pokmon itself has long been a mainstay of pop culture, becoming the highest-grossing media franchise of all time spread across games, animation, trading cards and more to a total sum of over $100 billion USD. While Niantic has multiple apps under their care, PoGo is by far their most popular. It has helped the company grow their valuation to nearly $9bUSD.These Pokmon-themed jumbo jets epitomize the omnipresence of Pokmania in the late90s.As a longtime Pokmon fan, I downloaded PoGo on day one but found the app lacking depth. It wasnt until a few years had passed that I returned to find a wildly different experience. As a designer, I discovered a decent product without sufficient care applied to craft its interweaving systems and interactions. As a player, I discovered my very first Pokmon dressed in a fun Halloween costume. Which is then stronger, logic oremotion?Overall, the apps interface is satisfactory but unoptimized. As a daily player, the locations of numerous key features used semi-regularly remain challenging to learn. I am consistently seeking out how to initiate a playgroup known as a party because access is buried behind a three-tab submenu within the page detailing player stats. Such difficulty is common throughout the entire experience. Features are located within unintuitive menu locations. Such design choices fail to facilitate the easy formation of mental models that aid user comprehension.There are numerous examples of this throughout the app. News updates are contained behind a two-tab submenu at the top of screen under three levels of pages from the bottom of another screen. Thats at least three clicks and several moments of confusion before remembering the proper path. Despite gaining a sort of muscle memory to brute force my way through the interface, I have to apply conscious effort often to complete tasks. It is the ineffective (bad) design itself that screams, I dont know where anythingis!One of the key tenets of Pokmon is catch em all. Doing so has always required trading between players. PoGo actively discourages trading, a key gameplay mechanic. Within the app, the trading user flow (the path taken from screen to screen) is slow and clunky. Rather than encourage trading through a quick, seamless experience, the app wastes players time booting them out to the main page after each completed trade. To their credit, finding your way back to the trade only requires clicking into player stats, navigating the submenu to locate the friend list, then scrolling through your full list (or sometimes not.) At least the actual trade menu is a confusing design with unclear instructions for navigating forward or back. Simple, effective design.Similar time-wasting interactions crop up throughout the broader experience, not merely trading. A few seconds often does not amount to anything significant. However, these interactions accumulate within an environment that creates demand through the use of time-limiting content. Fighting Rocket grunts, PoGos main antagonist, includes three to ten seconds of flavor text without any diversity, practical use or method to disengage. Raid battles, the equivalent of boss fights, include lengthy intro animations. Most battles end with generous animations (three to five seconds) and again more flavor text. Keep in mind that both battle types are time-locked to no more than 45 real-world minutes in total. For an app built around catching the best creatures, a lot of time is wasted getting to the part where you can catch creatures.As far as accessibility is concerned, the current design is inconsistent. A number of great features do exist. One piece of clever design allows single-handed play. One broadens the use of haptic feedback. Yet another combats color blindness, including visual icons to display weather or shiny statuses. (For those unaware, shiny Pokmon are rare spawns with alternate color combinations.) Catching shiny spawns is always a moment of excitement and triumph, yet someone with color blindness might miss out without non-color-based notifications. Kudos,Niantic.However, such successes providing equal opportunities to all players are quickly matched by careless design. The capture success ring, used to aim and display the probability of catching a Pokmon, is expressed solely through color. A colorblind person would need to learn other methods to comprehend the chances of success or risk wasting supplies. A colorblind person may not even realize the feature exists. A handful of small visual functions exist that I only personally learned of through my local community sharing tips and tricks in conversation.I will show respect to Niantic for the consistent A/B testing performed to optimize the app (or optimize, depending on how pessimistic the app makes me feel any given day) with various visual and layout tweaks. Some changes have made the app more aesthetically appealing though also more technologically demanding. Other changes, such as the overhaul of player avatars, have been met with fierce backlash from the player community. Despite vocal opposition and continued pressure on the developer, Niantic saidnothing.A developer has every right to change their product to suit the aspirations they envision for success. However, a product cannot be successful without customers. Consider the numerous examples of Niantic promising specific bonuses for timed events (remember FOMO: if you dont play now, youll miss out!) only to backtrack later via tweet offering decreased or entirely different bonuses. Examining any design tweaks alongside their history of and inability to properly message official changes via press releases or other channels, I often dont know what to expect at best or am expecting something different at worst. For a company worth $9b USD, this concedes a basic lack of respect for players. Perhaps it is a sign of internal management issues. (Why notboth?)It is important to understand how design can play a role in creating addiction before continuing. In his book Hooked, Nir Eyal details how habits, a precursor to addiction, can be built through certain repeating design patterns. These frameworks occur over four stages. Initially a Trigger, such as a push notification or advertisement, is required to cause a user to engage with a product or app. Afterward, an Action is taken, whether clicking a button, scrolling a feed or catching aPokmon.A visual representation of the different stages in Nir Eyals Hooked model, courtesy of the authorswebsite.This leads to the most critical step in the process, the Variable Reward or any unique content that changes upon each individual interaction with a product. Offering something new with each experience subsconsciously teaches users that something great is always just around the corner, such as a video that makes us smile or that rare Pokmon spawn we have been seeking out. This variation in what we find, specifically when it is something we like, causes the release of dopamine in the brain which in turn causes us to feel good. Positive feelings keep users engaged with a product longer. Just one more swipe. Just one more round. Just another minutemore.By engaging often enough, the user will begin to establish the Investment within a product. Investment operates similarly to the sunk-cost fallacy, where users feel commitment through the amount of time or effort placed into a product. This could potentially look like establishing a lengthy list of personal friends on Facebook, a photo collection of life experiences on Instagram or even a trained roster of creatures in PoGo. Consider me guilty ascharged.After enough passes through this Hooked cycle, users eventually internalize what were once external triggers, converting them into internal triggers. A push notification alerting you of new photos from your friends becomes a thought: I wonder what my friends posted online. I should check. Internal triggers can manifest as thoughts or feelings. It is here that a habit isborn.Habits and addiction can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Both are patterns of recurring thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. Transitioning from habit into addiction is not only nuanced but also outside my area of wisdom and expertise. Lets instead examine how Niantic uses these tactics to build a product that utilizes emotion to keep users in their mobile ecosystem in spite of the previously discussed poordesign.As mentioned, I stepped away from playing PoGo at launch. The mechanics did not translate to my brain which was more familiar with the mainline Nintendo games. Returning to the app to catch costumed Pokmon was an exciting experience that the mainline games did not have. What a fun way to see my first Pokmon! After spending time growing comfortable with the app and later integrating myself into a local player group, I learned the general sentiments stewing within the community. Top of this list? Niantic only cares about the money, not theplayers.Caught 10/25.From a design perspective, I find this subjective sentiment to hold some objective weight. Examining recent updates, the app has made it easier and quicker to spend Pokcoins, the in-app currency. Coins can be acquired slowly through gameplay (a daily limit of 50) or more quickly and in more significant amounts through real-world currency (at a rate of roughly 100 coins per $1 USD.) I find it revealing that facilitating microtransactions via the proliferation of coin usage and event tickets takes precedent over quality of life, gameplay-centric improvements but I do not find it surprising.Designing for sales via microtransactions is not new, having become a genre unto itself known as gacha games. What is new is Niantic finding mainstream gaming success. Pokmon Go is an outlier, the developers most successful and profitable product by a wide margin. Without the strength of the Pokmon brand behind it, PoGo most likely would not have found anywhere the level of gaming success ithas.The most recent updates provide more options to spend your coins in locations where the app makes interaction unpleasant. For example, I often find my in-app storage full. To catch more Pokmon, I need to have free space. A new button recently appeared, encouraging me to buy more storage space directly from within my storage instead of requiring me to make a conscious choice to navigate to the in-app shop. An optimist would argue this makes the action easier to complete. A realist would point out how slow it is to sort through Pokmon in storage, making clearing space one of the most labor-intensive tasks in the entire app. A pessimist would ask, Why waste time clearing space when you can instead spend money to get back to gameplay more quickly?This focus on encouraging spending habits through specific interactions extends even further. A newer feature to the app, small and large Pokmon (XXS and XXL respectively) offer nothing to gameplay outside of the anemic PokContest feature. Contests can be entered to win rewards such as supplies and experience points. Critically however, the Pokmon used in contests take up additional storage space. The apps newest feature repeats this pattern. Known as Dynamax raids, these particular Pokmon are primarily used to catch additional Dynamax Pokmon. Instead of using previously caught creatures, the app encourages players to catch additional copies in order to catch more, initiating a repeating cycle, taking up storage space and making the need for additional storage increasingly necessary.Also worth noting is players can opt to spend coins after Dynamax raids to increase the rewards received. Again, the pessimist asks, Why play more when you can spendmore?The screen players encounter after a completed Dynamaxraid.For rural players or those with disabilities, one of the most vital features facilitating playability and accessibility is a remote raid pass allowing access to high-level raids. These remote passes remove the need to physically be present in a location with sufficient players, typically dense urban environments. High-level raids are often the only way to gain powerful and/or legendary Pokmon. In a shocking reversal, the developer limited the number of remote raids allowed daily and increased the cost of passes 250%, from $1 USD to $2.5USD.This has been a sore spot in the community for ages. Niantic chose to discourage remote raids instead of encouraging in-person raids. Disappointingly, Niantic chose to do so in a way that actively hurt their most disadvantaged players instead of uplifting those able to play in the specific way the developer deemed as optimal. Negative reinforcement (increased real-world cost and less ability to participate for some) was utilized over positive reinforcement, such as better stats or rewards for in-person raids. Overall, I think this says a lot about the relationship between developer andplayer.Why though? Why choose to make such changes? That is the real question.All the information presented so far supports my primary assertion: Pokmon Go is intentionally designed to promote specific player behaviors through means both subtle and overt using the Pokmon franchise as leverage Except the behaviors discussed are not the behaviors intended.To put it simply, Pokmon Go is not aiming to be a thoughtful or well-designed game. The app preys on our emotional nature as human beings to encourage purposeful play patterns through the use of manufactured scarcity. The app solidifies these patterns into habit in service of collecting user GPS / location data. It hides this goal behind creature-collection gameplay, wearing the Pokmon brand as a mask like an antagonist walking through a foggy setting in a horrorfilm.(Note: This design ethos is in direct contrast to Nintendos own design creed, optimizing software for the fun and enjoyment of playing games. It is important to point out that while Nintendos design philosophy emphasizes the joy of play, their business philosophy is distinctly less consumer-friendly. For the purposes of this article, I am focusing on the philosophy and principles of design, not business.)The app is designed as a means to collect geospatial data in large quantities. That is speculation on my part. However, when I shift my perspective when considering Niantics design goal from earning revenue via microtransactions or even creating a fun Pokmon game to collecting GPS information, a lot of decisions in the app regarding encouraged player behavior make moresense.Niantic was founded in 2001 by a team of geospatial scientists and researchers as an augmented reality (AR) company. Their first project was an interactive map and model of the planet known as Keyhole. Three years after its founding, the company and its product were both acquired by Google who later renamed the product as GoogleEarth.For a company with expertise in complex navigational mapping tools, the transition to gaming was certainly distinct. I dont believe it is fair to suggest that developers at Niantic might completely lack any passing interest in video games. However, it is fair to suggest that leaping from one product category to another, entirely different category would not maintain some traces of what camebefore.Niantic used their development knowledge to create a product that habitualizes users into walking vast distances, collecting GPS data of routes, roads, paths, etc. as the user played. They utilized the strength of the Pokmon brand to supply reasons for users to want to collect this sort of data. By limiting the availability of creatures available, the app preys off players fear of not collecting powerful versions of their favorite Pokmon. FOMO and purposeful design choices turn players preexisting desire to catch em all into an addictive act, very cleverly supplying the developer with a recurring source of the type of revenue actually soughtafter.Piggybacking off the Pokmon brand was truly inspired. It allowed Niantic to make a product with minimal polish and lackluster game design techniques because Pokmon the brand had nearly twenty years of already established history when Pokmon Go launched in 2016. History breeds loyalty. Loyalty breeds a willingness to overlook flaws. The Pokmon brand breeds a unique, if entirely fabricated, emotional connection to creatures that exist only through digital sprites, animated cartoons and stuffed plushies.Perhaps it really is just a product meant to earn income through player purchases. That is plausible. Consider this: while the brand attracts a wide range of ages and backgrounds, Pokmon has always held a large percentage of children among its player base. Knowing how the app utilizes emotion as a means to encourage specific play behavior, how ethical is it to design a product with that goal? Does it become less ethical when considering the clear correlations gacha gaming has with gambling and the ages of the Pokmon user population?I cannot provide definitive answers to those questions. Perhaps the apps goal is truly as straightforward as collecting income via microtransactions. Perhaps itsnot.Niantic recently announced its plans to use data collected from users of its products to create a large geospatial model to train AI models to navigate within the physical world. Perhaps this is a positive thing; perhaps not. Do we choose to again trust a company who manipulated us once already? Its turtles all the waydown.Living in a world where artificial intelligence (AI) not only exists but is proliferating, we as humans have to shift our mindsets and willingness to accept facts in certain ways. AI can quickly and easily create almost-lifelike content without the need for a skilled artist to supply talent, time and desire. These tools have shifted the status quo. We as humans must learn to adapt as well. This requires self-awareness and flexibility, two key strengths in our modernworld.Once again, please dont misunderstand. As both a designer and player, I aim to supply the tools, knowledge and conversation to allow informed choices so that users have the agency to make their own decisions. All too often, choices are made for us, most often recently with the goal of training cryptic AI systems with obscured motives. What do we sacrifice in service of such goals? What benefit do wereceive?Humans have been smarter than computers for all of recorded history so far. That may change one day. We as humans have the benefit of emotion and complex reasoning abilities whereas computers are better at precise calculation. Until the day comes when computers become smarter than us (and hopefully beyond that day), we have the ability tochoose.To choose whether we want to sacrifice our agency and our data to companies whose motivations we cannot be sureof.To choose how we utilize our human freedoms and community.To choose which Pokmon gets the status of being labeled somebodys favorite.Trubbish, a toothy cutie with so much love togive.Pokmon Go: addictive by design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Artificial Intelligence, despite its benefits, presents designers with unprecedented challenges that demand ouraction.The responsibility of us designers to protect user interest and value has never been so important. Not only were living in a trendy era with the rise of ChatGPT and many other AI tools, but were also experiencing how these systems shifts control away from the user. Whether its automating tasks, discovering hidden patterns, enhancing user experiences, generating new content, or optimising decisions, AIs existence is driven by its ability to learn from data and improve over time without explicit programming. Currently, the speed and the way these super powerful technologies are being rolled out, we cannot follow as society, which causes great impact on the economy, on mental health, on culture and on society aswhole.We, designers, have to own up to our role in this emerging predictive world because we have our invisible hand meddling with the controls Helen ArmstrongThis quote is from the wonderful book Big Data, Big Design: Why Designers Should Care About Artificial Intelligence authored by Helen Armstrong, which explores the intersection of design and artificial intelligence, emphasising the role of designers in shaping AI-driven experiences. In a predictive digital world, we play a crucial role in ensuring that AI solutions are ethical, transparent, and aligned with human values. We must consider the potential biases in data, the impact on user privacy, and the societal implications of our creations. By prioritising responsibility and accountability, designers can help build a future where AI technologies enhance human capabilities and improve quality oflife.The book explores these issues in depth, featuring contributions from various designers, educators, and researchers who work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and design. It serves as my primary reference for the questions and discussions raised in this article, but I have drawn from numerous other sources to provide a comprehensive perspective, all of which are listed at the end of thisarticle.https://helenarmstrong.info/big-data-big-design/The central theme of the bookand of this articleis to emphasize the responsibility of designers in the ethical development of AI products and services. Our discipline is fundamentally human-centric, focusing on understanding and addressing human needs and desires within the broader societal context. The psychology, research, and strategy we employ in designing our products have a profound impact on the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of people worldwide.AI is human-centric?Human-centric design, like inclusive and participatory approaches, ensures fairness in data models, mitigates bias, and promotes inclusivity. It is widely recognised that human-centric design has been the guiding principle of all design frameworks and processes over the past decade, and this should be no different when working with AI. These perspectives have been valuable because they inform decision-makers about potential human impacts and help anticipate unintended consequences. Initiatives, such as Stanford Universitys Human-Centered AI Institute and MITs substantial investment in AI education, exemplify the global effort to prioritise a human-centric approach. According to this article by Sarah Tan, by exploring AIs human impact through various Human-Centered Design (HCD) approaches, design aligns values between humans and machines, integrating ethics at the projects core.Putting humans at the center of AI systemsHuman-Centered Artificial Intelligence: Three Fresh Ideas. Shneiderman B.(2020)Advocating for user needs, design research has the power to examine AI implications in real-world contextsaddressing socio-economic dynamics too. However, this isnt easy. We, as designers working in the industry, often feel pressured to quickly adopt the latest trends without time for reflection. We are frequently required to use behavioural research to influence user choices, sometimes at the expense of their well-being. Additionally, we must operate in fast-paced environments, adopting to the move fast and break things mentality popularised by early Facebook culture. This approach can make it harder for us to design thoughtfully and ethicallyBut how to stand up for people in the face of suchforces?AI capabilities all designers shouldknowHeres what I aim to achieve with this article: to inspire designers to get more involved in creating AI systems, so we can make the process more ethical and human-centered. This means using design thinking as our guide to reduce the negative impacts of AI on society by developing human-centered AI systems and guidelines.How we can achieve this is still being figured out, and we are all part of this process! To help, I want to highlight the main capabilities discussed in Armstrongs book, where we designers should be actively involved. We need to advocate for design decisions that meet user needs and respect the socio-economic context in an ethical way. It wont be easy, but we can start paving the way with these elements.1. Designing to power up predictionsPrediction is a central capability of machine learning (a subset of AI that involves training algorithms on data to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed). In the context of predictive modelling, the goal of machine learning is to forecast future events or outcomes and anticipate behaviours based on patterns found in historical data.For instance, we can think of Gmails feature that autocompletes sentences based on your past behaviour. Over time, the system learns an individuals style so well that it can finish sentences and even suggest appropriate tones or sentiments.Screen capture from my personalGmailOr we can think of the numerous applications across various industries, such as stock price forecasting, inventory and supply chain optimisation, healthcare predictions (such as disease outbreak forecasting), targeted marketing campaigns, and other personalised user experiences.While these AI-driven predictions arent always 100% accurate, they offer significant benefits to businesses. The advantage is that by anticipating future demands, trends, and needs, companies can better prepare for opportunities and gain a competitive edge. For that end, designers are required to plan for a shifting experiential landscape when working with intelligent technology in their projects.On the other hand, designers cannot blindly apply AI technology without the risk of subjecting humans to discrimination, surveillance, and/or manipulation, not just individually but at scale. Predictive models can sometimes reinforce existing biases or lead to unintended consequences.Face Cages are a dramatization of the abstract violence of the biometric diagram. More on: https://zachblas.info/works/face-cages/Designers have a responsibility to foresee these potential issues and take steps to mitigate them, ensuring that their designs are ethical and inclusive. As Kate Crawford, AI Now Institute founder, putsis:Understanding the politics within AI systems matters more than ever, as they are quickly moving into the architecture of social institutions: deciding whom to interview for a job, which students are playing attention in class, which suspects to arrest, and muchelse.2. Designing to anticipate future scenariosIn her book, Helen Armstrong explores the concept of anticipation, showing how designers can use AI to predict and meet user needs proactively. This involves leveraging data-driven insights to stay one step ahead of users, reducing friction and enhancing the overall user experience.One advantage of anticipatory design is that it reduces decision fatigue by minimizing the cognitive load on users through predictive systems. These systems offer relevant choices or take actions on behalf of users. For example, companies like Netflix and Amazon use predictive analytics to recommend products or content. However, there are ethical implications, as such systems might infringe on user autonomy or privacy. As Armstrong rightfully states on page210:The promise of anticipatory design lies in its potential to craft experiences that feel intuitive and personalised. Yet, with this power comes the duty to wield it responsibly, ensuring that the human element remains at the heart of every design decision.Fortunately, there is a forward-thinking approach that allows us to create products and services that are resilient to change and can evolve with user expectations. Designers can use AI to simulate and model potential future scenarios, anticipating various user needs, environmental factors, and societal changes. This ensures that our designs remain relevant and adaptable.Flock Defines Flight Risk to Make Insurance for Drone Operations Simple: the insurance company worked with studio IF to create an interface that help clients understand how automated decisions were made around insurance rates.3. Designing to create personal experiencesPersonalisation in user experience design involves tailoring interfaces, content, and interactions to meet the specific needs, preferences, and contexts of individual users. When we talk about personalisation in the context of AI, it often means leveraging predictive technologies and data analysis to deliver experiences that are more relevant and valuable to users at any given moment. Personalisation ensures that the information or actions presented to the user are useful, usable, and desirable, inspired by the popular quote from design researcher LizSanders.AI can enhance personalisation by analysing vast amounts of user data to identify patterns and preferences, using predictive models to anticipate what a user might need or want nextthis can involve considering the users current context, such as location or time of day, to provide more relevant suggestions. However, personalisation also raises ethical concerns, including privacy, bias, and transparency. This is why we, designers, play a crucial role in ensuring that personalisation is implemented effectively and ethically. We must understand user needs and preferences through research and testing, and continuously gather feedback to refine personalisation features.https://medium.com/media/6cf6ef6eec5b59e000dc098865a8e440/hrefWe can say that personalisation is a powerful tool in a designers toolkit, but as Armstrong emphasizes, the success of personalised experiences hinges on the thoughtful and ethical application of AI insights. It is crucial to always prioritise the users best interests, ensuring that personalisation efforts are not only effective but also respectful and beneficial to the individual.4. Using AI as a DesignMaterialDesigning for AI is challenging because the technology is invisible and abstract. As designers, if we cant sketch a solution, it feels like losing a crucial ability. As interaction design professor Philip Van Allen puts it, its like our arm is cut off. To address this, he created a no-code programming environment for his students, providing easy access to machine learning. The tool is called Delft AI Toolkit and it simulates an AI system in 3D, allowing designers to observe and manipulate the systems behaviour and data sources in a virtual space before investing time and expertise into model training and building a physicalrobot.https://medium.com/media/7554deb21a70eb4fc12cd2a0689fdd80/hrefAnother approach to working with AI as a design material comes from John Zimmerman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He developed a method that focuses on the AI system capabilities rather than the underlying technology. Zimmerman observes that many of his design students are uncertain of whats possible when working with AI technologies, so he uses a match-making system which helps them grasp the AI systems potential. For example, he presents a two-class text classifier and asks, What could you do with this, and for whom?. This method helps designers identify existing capabilities and apply them in innovative ways. As with any design tool, the more we experiment with it, the more comfortable we become, and the more examples and abstractions of AI capabilities we will generate.Janelle Shanes experiments with DALL-E 3 playfully tease out all the ways algorithms can get things wrong. Here, she jumps into the algorithmic training process to generate candy heart messages. More on: https://www.aiweirdness.com/dall-e3-generates-candy-hearts/A third approach, which I find particularly effective, is using the Object-Oriented UX (OOUX) methodology. OOUX focuses on objects before actions, aligning with how users perceive the real world. It borrows concepts from object-oriented programming but applies them to user experience design. This approach works well with AI workflows by organising data and interactions around objects, making complex AI systems more intuitive for non-developers by matching their mental models. Sophia Prater is a leading expert in the OOUX field, and I highly recommend her materials and podcasts on thesubject.On a personal note, I recently completed my first project using this approach for a native AI product. The methodology was incredibly helpful. It allowed me to visualise the systems functionality and limitations more clearly, which also aided the engineers. Additionally, it made my design process more tangible through object mapping and user flows, enhancing the quality and accuracy of my proposed solutions.A beautifully chaotic collaboration between me and the engineering team using the OOUXapproachML is the new UX. I envision UX practitioners leveraging machine learning as a design material creatively and thoughtfully, guiding users and technologists toward a deliberative ML-mediated futureQian Yang, Cornell University5. Designing to reduce climate impact ofAIAlthough this isnt mentioned in the book and isnt a AI capability, it is certainly one of the key skills designers should possess, especially in the 21st century with the rise of AI technologies.Theres an article called How to Design Climate-Forward AI Companies by Santhi Analytis that emphasises the important role designers play in mitigating the environmental impact of AI technologies. It frames the challenge of AIs growing carbon footprintfueled by energy-intensive processes like model training and data center operationsas one that requires urgent attention from both engineers and designers. Designers can contribute by creating energy-efficient UI/UX elements, minimizing unnecessary data and media loads, and applying green software principles. Additionally, designers can push for socially equitable uses of AI by developing inclusive, climate-conscious user experiences.The Intercept Brasil (in Portuguese) also published last year an article stating that the major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are now turning to nuclear energy as a solution in response to the growing energy demands of AI and data centers. Microsoft plans to reopen the Three Mile Island plant, Google has partnered with Kairos Power for small reactors, and Amazon has invested $500 million in nuclear technology. Many of these data centers are being built in countries from the Global South, where labor and infrastructure costs are lower, raising concerns about resource exploitation. While nuclear energy is carbon-free and efficient, it is costly and carries risks, and critics argue that big tech is addressing a crisis of its own making, prioritizing rapid technological expansion over sustainability.The industrys move fast mentality raises concerns about whether nuclear energy can truly keep pace with AIs accelerating energy consumption, or if it will simply become another chapter in big techs history of unchecked growth. This Vox documentary tries to answer this question:https://medium.com/media/8d8c5a33bba53566072d960d2be0f0f4/hrefIn this other article from MIT, the author Andrew Winston also highlights the growing environmental impact of AI and provides recommendations to reduce its carbon footprint, such as using existing models instead of creating new ones. It emphasises the role of designers in this issue, urging them to develop AI expertise to simplify complex concepts, communicate the nutriscore of AI in their products (its usage and environmental cost), and adhere to an ethical code of conduct similar to the EUs AI Act, ensuring AI products are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory, and environmentally responsible.As designers, we can influence user behaviour and company policies by incorporating transparent data models that reflect the true costs of AI, thus ensuring the technology not only solves human problems but also helps tackle environmental challenges.Conclusion: Lets takeactionIts easy to feel overwhelmed by the urgent need for AI ethics. AI is a versatile and dynamic field, capable of performing a wide range of tasks that can help solve real-world problems. However, algorithmic systems often reflect and amplify existing societal biases. Until interfaces clearly communicate the logic behind these algorithmic decisions, users wont be able to hold these systems accountable. This is why designers and the communities they serve need to understand digital rights. We must hold ourselves and the industry accountable for the choices we make through ourdesigns.The key question is: Will we allow machine learning to prey on those already victimised by society, or will we use this technology as a mechanism for equity andjustice?Here are some actions we can start taking as designers in this industry: Design for anticipation to prepare for multiple possible futures, making our designs more flexible and future-proof Think critically about the long-term impacts of our designs and the data-driven decisions that underpinthem Articulate digital rights and guide users with transparency toward options through design interactions Break down complex privacy agreements into quick, comprehensible, just-in-time interactions Prototype future-facing concepts, like personal privacyagents Support collective digital rights organisations and community-driven dataset initiatives Ask early questions about ethics and biases to ensure technology adapts to human needs, not the other wayaroundHow do you approach building AI products? What examples do you know of ethical and inclusive design solutions?ReferencesBig Data, Big Design: Why Designers Should Care About Artificial IntelligenceHelen Armstrong (Book)Design and the Question of HistoryTony Fry, Clive Dilnot, Susan Stewart(Book)Human-Centered Design for AIWebinar by Niwal Sheikh (Product Design Lead, Netflix) byIxDFHow to Design Climate-Forward AI CompaniesArticle by SanthiAnalytisThe problem with AI development today: Designers need to step upArticle by SarahTanWill AI Help or Hurt Sustainability? YesArticle by AndrewWinstonWhat is predictive AI?Article by CloudflareReviewing the Terms & Conditions of popular generative AI toolsArticle by DavidSerraultThe Problem with AI Development: Designers need to step upArticle by SarahTanDesign For AI (Artificial Intelligence)Article by Sudarshan SahuDesign Against AIWebsite by JohnMaedaThe Intercept: Big techs apelam para energia nuclearArticle from Portal InvestNE mentioning the original piece from The Intercept BrasilOOUXWebsite by SophiaPraterAI Now InstituteWebsiteWhy AI (desperately) needs designers was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Nvidia introduced the free Nvidia Broadcast app in 2020, it promised to use the AI capabilities of RTX GPUs to boost the video and sound quality of users' recordings, presuming they had the right hardware. This could be useful when a laptops built-in webcam and microphones may not capture the best looking footage or the richest audio, and could potentially help streamers get by with a cheaper setup. With version 2.0 of the Nvidia Broadcast app, released at the tail end of January, the capabilities are stepping up even higher...perhaps a little too close to the sun.In Nvidia Broadcast 2.0, microphones still have options for noise removal and room echo removal, but theres now also a studio voice effect in beta that enhances the quality of your mic to simulate a high end recording studio. For video, the app can still make tweaks to your background (replacing, blurring, or essentially green-screening it), remove noise from grainy footage, zoom in and automatically keep you in frame, and strangely enough, make it look like your eyes are looking at the camera. But new with the update is virtual lighting, to better highlight you in your video.Some of these new features call for powerful GPUs. Studio voice, video noise removal, and virtual key light all call for a high-end GPU and arent recommended for use while gaming or using other GPU-intensive applications. All features require RTX hardware, meaning youll need at least an RTX 2060 or above to try them, but for the features that require a high-end GPU, Nvidia says an RTX 4080, 5080, or higher is required. That said, I was able to run both features on an RTX 4060 mobile GPU.Nvidia Broadcast in actionThe idea behind these AI features is cool, but how well they actually work is still in question. For one thing, they may really be as demanding as Nvidia says. Running either the virtual key light or studio voice feature on my RTX 4060-powered laptop showed the GPU was absolutely slammed by the process. Nvidias built-in GPU Utilization monitor was showing red, with the RTX 4060 all but maxed out and the performance overlay showing it drawing 60 watts. My laptops fans even ramped up as if I were gaming at full throttle. So just from an economics standpoint, these features are costly no matter how you look at them. Youll need to have powerful hardware to run them, and then run that hardware hard. Plan on using these features on a desktop computer or with your laptop plugged in.Then theres the even more crucial matter of how they really look and sound. Lets start with video. Credit: Mark Knapp The eye contact tool, despite being available before Broadcast 2.0, has now come out of beta. But Im not convinced it should have. Sure, enabling it makes it look like Im staring into the camera in video footage. But in my testing, it invariably gave me big blue eyes that made me look like a White Walker right out of Game of Thrones. For reference, I do not have blue eyes. Even when I was making eye contact with the camera, Nvidia Broadcast still insisted on editing my eyes and making them blue. Credit: Mark Knapp The virtual key light did what it said. It created artificial lighting to boost brightness on me without bumping up the brightness on the whole video. The results failed to impress me, though. With it enabled, I simply look like Ive gone radioactive. The lighting is very unnatural.As for the audio, at first blush, it sounds fairly impressive. The mics on my laptop are not very good. Even in a quiet room, they put out audio that has me sounding far away and slightly muffled. With studio voice enabled, my voice ends up much fuller and clearer sounding. But listening closely, theres an odd digitization going on. Its hard to characterize, but it doesnt sound like its really my voice. It sounds more like a recording of my voice was used in a voice cloner, and then that repeated everything I said. Its all just a little stilted and quavering.Listen below: The studio voice feature also cant save the mic from a bad recording environment. Testing in a small room with a box fan running at full blast, the audio was a dramatic improvement in clarity compared to the raw recording from the microphones, but it was still audibly processed, and the efforts to subdue the background noise made my voice sound especially odd.If you have a half-decent microphone, studio voice might even make it worse. I made additional test recordings using the built-in boom mic on the Audeze Maxwell headset with it directly wired into my laptop. In both a quiet and loud room, it provided a loud, clear, and full recording of my voice without studio voice enabled. In both cases, turning on studio voice then introduced hard-to-miss digitization that not only made the audio sound worse but also made it harder to comprehend.Can Nvidia AI replace a proper streaming setup?Given the hardware requirements, performance demands, and quality of the results, the stars really need to align for these newer Nvidia Broadcast features to feel truly worthwhile. If you have an Nvidia-powered system, by all means, play with the tool. Some of the features can come in handy, like the auto-framing one. But I wouldnt recommend shelling out for a new Nvidia GPU just so you can save money on audio and video recording gear, especially if you want to get anywhere close to professional quality. And dont forget that the power draw of the GPU trying to run these features will add up over time.The audio quality I got from studio voice perhaps limited by the RTX 4060 in my system wasnt something Id want to share with any kind of audience on a regular basis, and it paled in comparison to the quality I could get just from having a headset with a boom mic. Ive tested a lot of gaming headsets, and even very cheap wired headsets with a boom mic are leagues better than what I heard from studio voice.The eye contact feature failed to be anything other than unsettling, and I dont think its going to fool anyone into believing youre actually making eye contact with them. And the virtual key light, much like studio voice, doesnt appear to be a quality substitute for a real key light, especially when affordable LED lights are a dime a dozen.

This week's biggest event was the Super Bowl. While the game was a snore-fest reminiscent of the lopsided Super Bowl blowouts of the past, the halftime show was nothing like the performances of 1980s Super Bowl favorites "Up with People." If you compare the two performances (and you should), you'll see how far we have come as a society. Kendrick's jeans win the Super Bowl Super Bowl 2025 may have been more of beatdown than an exciting football game, but luckily Kendrick Lamar was around at halftime to provide some much needed drama. From "Uncle" Samuel L. Jackson providing a preemptive critique of the show from "mainstream" America, to Serena Williams crip walking for more total yards than the Kansas City offense, to the copious Drake-baiting, plus some provocative, timely questions about what "America" means anyway, all of it performed in front of the sitting president himself, it was a lot.But even still, Kendrick's jeans stole the show.Debates over jean length and style have been vital part of youth culture since forever, and K Dot's choice of washed, boot-cut jeansflares, evenmarks a turning point. For the last few years, kids have been wearing huge, Jnco style jeans dug up from the mid-1990s, often accented with some chrome studs, but Kendricks "loose fit on top; wild at the ankles" style is destined to be the must-wear cut for the foreseeable future. Hopefully kids will take note that Kendrick's jeans are the right length, and not do that "so long it's draggin on the ground" thing that was popular the last time people wore bell-bottoms. As for the future of jeans, look for the return of skinny jeans; it is inevitable. "What's a father?" memes take over the internetOnline wags recently rediscovered an old clip of an interview with deceased rapper XXXTentacion, and they have been turning out hilarious memes using it on X, TikTok, and everywhere else ever since. The original video was released in 2022 by TheFader. In it, XXX is asked Do you have any relationship with your father? He responds "Whats that? Whats a father?" and there's something so performativly poignant about itso real-but-so-fakethat the moment defines cringe. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. The internet piled on after the initial post on X, with the consensus that XXX was corny. Then there were attempts to recreate the clip as accurately as possible: And lots of memes where XXXTentacion fails to understand other simple things, like showers and jobs.What does "reheating your own nachos" mean?"Reheating nachos" or "reheating your own nachos" is an evocative piece of slang that comes from online fandom and amateur cultural critics. It is used to refer to performers and/or artists, and it means something like "trying to recapture what was good about previous work."It's usually meant as negative criticismnachos are generally not nearly as delicious when reheatedbut it's possible to successfully reheat your own nachos too. For instance, many fans of Lady Gaga regard her new single "Abracadabra" as reheated nachosit's got the same electronic beats, wordplay, and catchy chorus of her best workbut it's regarded as awesome by many, leading to the suggestion that she made the new nachos as delicious as the old ones and/or created new nachos from her old recipes. Like a good nacho cheese pull, it's possible to stretch this concept pretty far. What does "boombayah" mean? The slang term "boombayah" is a euphemism for having sex, sometimes phrased like "doing the boombayah." It's used mostly online, often to defeat censorship algorithms, so it's not the kind of word you're likely to hear said aloud. The word originated with K-Pop band BlackPink's 2016 song of the same name but has only recently caught on widely, first within the fandom of Squid Game (thanks to this video), from whence it spread to everyone else. Everyone hates "Influencer Smurf" Few things engender as passionate a reaction as reboots of beloved childhood media. When the new version of the old thing is done well, people absolutely love it, like the reaction to the recent Super Mario Bros. movie. But when it's done poorly, the vitriol is off-the-charts. So it is with the upcoming Smurfs movie. The plot, in which the Smurfs have to enter the real world for some reason, is seen as lazy, obvious, and also the same as the story for the quite poor 2011 live action Smurfs movie. But there's a special hatred for one character in the trailer: Influencer Smurf. His line in the trailer ("Smash that subscribe button!") and his smug look are seen as the worst kind of pandering, and a desperate bid to create modern relevance in the most obvious way possible. "Influencer Smurf will lead to a catastrophic event in July," sums up one Reddit poster.On the positive side of The Smurfs reactions, people like the casting of John Goodman as Papa Smurf. So there's at least something nice to say. There's also the fact that Smurfs were never anything but horrible, and people only liked Smurfs in the first place because they were 5 years old. A new generations of 5-year-olds is primed to fall in love this summer when The Smurfs is released. Again.Viral video of the week: Doug's winter party This week's viral video is so wholesome you can't help but love it. Taken by a Ring doorbell cam, Doug's Winter Party documents 85 year-old Doug visiting his neighbor Michelle to invite her and her family to his party. "Hi, I'm Doug across the street over here," Doug says. "This is an invite to a party on February 15. I didnt want to leave it in the mailbox.That would be fairly cutemaybe a five on a 10-point adorability scalebut Michelle follows with a video showing off the paper invitation, where Doug writes the party is from "4 p.m. until the cops arrive." That shoots it up to 11. An invitation to Doug's winter party is now the most coveted ticket in the world (or on the internet, anyway), with many angling for a spot on Doug's guest list and trying to impress with the dance moves they'll bring. We can all only hope that no weird strangers actually show up. Nobody wants that, least of all Doug.