Star Trek: Section 31 – Mission Briefer

As part of the Fritzes Best Interfaces award for 2026, I am reviewing the interfaces in Star Trek: Section 31. This post is about the mission briefer. When HQ needs a team to get moving, they send a mission briefer. (n.b. Ths is my term. They don’t mention it by name in the movie.) This little faceted matte-black pod is the size of an orange with one flat side. Rest it on a surface, and when an authorized person long-touches the top, it spins open like a lotus flower. A lens rises up and emits a holographic video projection above it with mission information. The projection has a highly pixelated translucent appearance. The movie begins with the decontextualized briefing for the pre-Georgiou team, and ends with the final team standing around a table in Baraam, receiving a briefing for a mission that will take them to Turkana IV. (!) One excellent design aspect is that there’s no indication from the outside what it is or how to use it. Ordinarily of course we designers work hard to make…