Mass Effect 2 - Interview @ Bright Hub

A site called Bright Hub has an interview with BioWare Development Director Dorian Keiken about Mass Effect 2.  The conversation follows a speech from Dorian at the Montreal International Games Summit and here's a snip:

The original Mass Effect came with an excellent selection of special ammunition that would inflict all kinds of bonus damage or debuff. But, it was trapped behind a layer or two of inventory UI, and many players weren't too keen on having to suspend disbelief for that long. Just because you can pause combat doesn't mean you want to do it often. Gameplay videos of Mass Effect 2 have shown something that looked a lot like grabbing and switching ammo from the on screen hud. I asked about the UI improvements' related to the ammo.

“That was exactly the feedback we had on Mass Effect 1. Not only was the inventory system a little heavy once you had to go to it and it was not very intuitive, but the thing is it breaks the flow. You're just moving around, shooting different elements, and then 'Oh, okay. You're grabbing something: you're going to inventory, changing elements, and then coming back to the game,' and just general flow breaks. All the effort was put, actually, on Mass Effect 2, into having a very nice, slick, flow in general. More specifically referring to the ammo system, its exactly answering that question. You never have to go to a specific UI, for example to change your ammo like you had to do in Mass Effect 1.”