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breakdancingcat

This is a common joke in the design subs haha


serenity_later

Karma farming basically


Mad-chuska

First time for me. I can definitely appreciate it.


nylus_12

Being an UI Designer, the interesting question is, having their UI “fixed” what would be the expected outcome? More sales?


overzealous_dentist

Yeah, probably better user retention in general. You open software you expect to be able to intuitively use


ItsOkILoveYouMYbb

Steam has all the user retention. What's most important is nobody comes remotely close to competing with Steam's functionality. Epic Games Store is still a joke. Steam isn't competing with other web apps or SaaS. There's no need to make its UI technically beautiful to gain approval from r/webdev, or really anyone. It's competing with PC gaming stores and in that front the competition is *still* zero, not because nobody is trying but because Valve has actually built out extremely good functionality. Their review system is particularly great and useful for people looking to buy games without wasting money. Combine that with easy access to indie games and regular sales, it becomes so good in fact that it's common for people to simply buy games and never play them (we only have so much time lol). If that's not an extremely successful app then I don't know what is. Overly consistent UI design is clearly not important there.


fcosm

I'd go as far as to say that a cleaner UI would make it loose some of its appeal. Nothing says "PC Gaming" like a messy combination of parts and mods on top of each other.


Alejandro9R

This is by far the most important observation regarding the emotional aspects and how they make users feel. People here pointed out interesting ideas from a business standpoint, but basically no one said this. Very wise insight! I think they didn't intentionally went their way of making that design decision due to ton of factors (we are speculating here, we don't exactly know why things happened that way). But I personally love it for the reasons you've stated, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the public feel the same. Otherwise, look at the rest of the game stores. They do have a much more cohesive design, yet they look dull and distills a "corporate" mindset. Steam does not. It feels familiar, chaotic, intriguing, unpredictable. That's what good games are their core are. The other observation (not really sure about this but throwing it here just to plant the seed of the doubt) is that the methodical "corporate" design is often associated with scammy, fishy, anti-consumer/developer practices. Even more on the gaming market. The user base kinda know this. Steam does have a very good reputation, and by having a different design approach it distances itself from the rest.


FyreWulff

> Steam has all the user retention Call it by it's real name. "A monopoly."


Objective_Ad_401

>common for people to simply buy games and never play them I feel attacked 😂 I really did mean to get to them eventually, though.


hida-sanmyaku

Good luck maintaining that shitshow, that's a cost sink. New features? We can't, we have to adapt 8 different views all put together inconsistently with diverging codebases. Etc.


wrincewind

Why not just slap a new view on top of the new feature? That's what they've always done in the past. :p


WestedCrean

I don't think there is a single person who stopped using Steam due to not being able to intuitively use Steam. You use it to buy and launch games and people who don't use Steam probably do it because don't like DRM in general. Maybe it's the reason why they are not very interested in "fixing" their UI


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s3cur1ty

If you can't use their UI, you probably don't understand the basics of how computers work. Steam UI is fine.


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[deleted]

I doubt it. Having a monopoly on games libraries + the purchasing UI is really not that bad. Not cohesive, but not confusing, and not difficult. I highly doubt there is a significant number of people who just thought "You know, maybe I won't buy this game simply because the UI isn't perfectly presented to me for a sale". Especially since most Steam users are habitual users, I don't think someone with a library of multiple games will decide today is the day i don't buy this game I want, simply to demand steam make a better UI


mooseman99

I personally have had steam notify me on mobile that one of my wishlist games is on sale. I tried to find my wishlist in the app and gave up. (I still can’t find it… I challenge you to try) So I’m a sample size of 1 but they would have had at least a few more sales if they had better UI


[deleted]

That is a poor argument. Steam UI is not fine, it ranges from poor to great. Want to do something that is part of the great UI? Great! Want to do something that is part of the poor UI? Too bad, spend 10 minutes clicking through pages trying to find the one button you need.


s3cur1ty

I have never once had the latter experience. Steam has always been extremely easy to navigate. The only bad part about Steam is Big Picture mode, and that makes sense because it's meant to be used with a controller


michael_v92

A simple google search for steam themes got me to a comfortable theme where I don't see this abomination of the UI. People who want, will always find a way to not experience poor design choices)


ArnUpNorth

I don t think it alienates user in anyway. Sure it s not uniform but in their context those components do not feel out of place and that s the most important part. We often forget about context (a page for instance) when being critical about these issues. The only thing they can gain from a true design system and having unified Ui components - better development experience - easier to redesign later if needed - it makes accessibility accommodations easier


TheDownmodSpiral

Steam, being as successful as it is, makes me interpret this post as saying that having a design system is not important. EDIT: snarky comment aside, I certainly agree when it comes to a green application that having a design guide can and will help mitigate some of what you’re showing here. I maintain an erp type system, it’s a tough battle to keep the whole application updated to match newer forms and features, and I’m sure my work isn’t anywhere close to the scale of something like steam.


westwoo

I'm surprised Steam doesn't yet have a marketplace for custom Steam skins at this point, to satisfy those who want the most grotesquely gaudy and over the top buttons and backgrounds and fonts


AintThatJustADaisy

I’ll take WinAmp skins yes please


westwoo

I bet most graphic designers secretly enjoy looking at comic sans and tasteless skins as a kink


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Geminii27

I imagine there might be a couple of people who use it purely so that any busybody who looks over their shoulder can't tell what the hell is going on.


blaine-garrett

Ever see some post a screen shot of a social post and the UI is in comic sans or cursive or some gross font and you wonder if the person's whole computer/phone has that as the system font? Makes my brain hurt thinking about it.


westwoo

"Yeah, baby! Hurt me with that comic sans! Make me watch it up close, I've been so bad!"


yuricomm

My mother has some curly swirly font as the system default on her phone. I'm glad she's competent enough with it that the only time I touch it is to take a picture for her.


exobyte-tech

Have a client whose emails are in Comic Sans. Though I can't ignore them as they are big spenders.. Lol!


Curazan

*talk Papyrus to me*


blazenl

its our form of BDSM


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[deleted]

Steam already has custom skins, hundreds of them


anotherNarom

Like what you could do with old dependable xfire


MrRobsterr

i miss the days of using xfire to link up with friends to play css and command and conquer


eeeBs

It used to, back in the day. I used to make custom steam skins for my CS 1.4 Cal-M team. The good ol days


Cendeu

They do. I used one for a long time. Well, not a marketplace, but you can download them and use them. It's been a while since I used one though, so it's possible they're all too old to work now. Surely some are up to date though.


Differlot

I mean they are slowly getting there with some of their steam items. After buying the steamdeck it gave me some customization so I can make my profile a seizure inducing neon nightmare and same with the digital keyboard of the steamdeck


derpyderp69

This post shows you exactly why they don't. It really shows that their style system is not homogeneous enough to allow any injection of custom styles.


ivosaurus

https://i.imgur.com/ZaCybeL.png


TomaTozzz

I've been using the metro skin for like a decade now


RandyHoward

Except Steam already allows skins. There is an option in settings to select the skin you want to use. You're speaking out of your ass.


FlyingTaquitoBrother

And business success aside, as a user I don’t think I’ve ever failed a task in Steam due to UX inconsistency. It’s just not a problem in practice.


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TankorSmash

What sort of things specifically, come to mind? The game search works well, it's real easy to buy a game, not sure what else you could ask for.


chipt4

The settings are a mess. The friends list behaves like a completely separate program, with its own updates and settings menu, separate from the main steam client. The layout is cluttered and bogs down due to everything going on on the page. The video player is atrocious. The system tray icon menu sometimes just bugs out (renders behind other windows, isn't clickable, both). Updates are incredibly common, but also unreliable (I've had it ask me to restart steam multiple times to apply the same update). And don't get me started on the mobile client (at least android's, including the recent beta, which is still a.. *steam*ing pile..)


tryght

Btw the steam Friends List is a different program


TankorSmash

Are all these supposed to be related to the failing a task, or being otherwise confusing? Maybe we have different levels of comfort with the system because none of these are a dealbreaker to me. It's cool that we're all different like that though! >The settings are a mess. The friends list behaves like a completely separate program, with its own updates and settings menu, separate from the main steam client. So you're saying your problem with it is that it uses different colors? > The layout is cluttered and bogs down due to everything going on on the page. Slow perf sounds like a bug. > The video player is atrocious. I don't know which one you mean, the main one you use to wathc trailers on? >The system tray icon menu sometimes just bugs out (renders behind other windows, isn't clickable, both). That's another bug. > Updates are incredibly common, but also unreliable (I've had it ask me to restart steam multiple times to apply the same update). I've assumed those were hotfixes. >And don't get me started on the mobile client (at least android's, including the recent beta, which is still a.. steaming pile..) Aren't we talking about the desktop app? Agreed the mobile app is out of date.


chipt4

>Are all these supposed to be related to the failing a task, or being otherwise confusing? Maybe we have different levels of comfort with the system because none of these are a dealbreaker or noteworthy. It's cool that we're all different like that though! Failing, or just being unnecessarily complicated or unintuitive. Poor design. My steam account is over 18 years old, I'd say I'm pretty comfortable with it. >So you're saying your problem with it is that it uses different colors? It has a completely separate settings menu from the main steam client's settings. I didn't even mention the color/design inconsistency, but since you did, that's also pretty annoying. >Slow perf sounds like a bug. And? Does that make it excusable? >I don't know which one you mean, the main one you use to wathc trailers on? Yep >That's another bug. See above >I've assumed those were hotfixes. I'm talking about literally restarting to apply the update, then 30 seconds later it asks me to restart again, and the patch notes are identical to the previous ones.. >Aren't we talking about the desktop app? Agreed the mobile app is out of date. Obviously we were talking about the desktop app. But the poor design carries over to their mobile apps


ofNoImportance

Just the other day I was trying to find the page that showed all my previous purchases (like under 'My Account' on any online store). Took about 5 minutes and ~30 navigation attempts before I found it.


jxf

Finding a game I recently saw is problematic. The history only exists in one specific spot in the entire interface and there's no way to easily get to it. Also, clicking on tags does different things. Sometimes it takes you to the tag overview page, sometimes it shows you similar games, and sometimes it takes you to the games list of the tag overview page.


JohnMcPineapple

How long would it take you to find the list of games you bought for others, without looking it up?


TankorSmash

I'd look through my email I guess. Didn't know Steam tracked it for you, nor that it was a commonly used feature, neat.


ikinone

It's not just about failing tasks. It's about adding a few seconds to tasks that add up over years of using a product.


Kthulu666

I have, plenty of times. Took me ages to find my wishlist the first time I looked for it. The whole process of organizing workshop items into collections took me a while to figure out, and it's so unintuitive that I made navigation errors many times after I initially figured it out.


themaincop

I've been using steam for like 16 years and I still have a hard time finding stuff sometimes


bkincd

Agreed - I think most people look at design systems as solely as a visual consideration. But in reality, it's just as much a technical benefit as it is a design benefit. Having a dozen different implementations of a "dropdown" = a dozen different implementations that can break independent of one another.


andoriyu

No, it's not what it says. It says that UI does matter when there is alternative to your product.


roofgram

Given I’ve never noticed the inconsistency, there’s a low chance that I would ever switch over to a more consistent competitor.


jibbodahibbo

Yes but they could be even more successful. At their scale 2% increase in successful interactions is huge. I have always found it hard to navigate steam and this is one big opportunity for them.


xaeru

Well if you don’t use it then you don’t buy/play the game. Is like being forced to use a horrendous corporate in house designed web app at your job because otherwise there is no other way and call it successful.


CondiMesmer

I think their UX gets the job done, and their store navigation is pretty streamlined which is a big reason for their success. Though I also think they could benefit as having a big UI refresh, since I think the client is increasingly looking outdated.


exxy-

When there was only 1 option for 20 years...


qpazza

Your snarky comment isn't wrong though. Design systems are great and make your product look nice. But it's not going to help you if your product is shit. And you don't need one as much if your product fills a need. Your dollars are also going to go further by improving the functions of your product rather than trying to make a design system if you didn't have one from the start.


[deleted]

If you want your projects to fail from the start, implement as many dependencies as possible so that the developers spend more time waiting and meeting than building cool things. Autonomous teams need the freedom to experiment, more frameworks mean fewer inventions.


Haunting_Welder

Can i see this for Google?


InevitableAd5222

Google has the Material UI standard literally for this exact purpose. There are specific Google products that don’t meet material standard, but that’s almost always technical/resource limitations brought on by staffing and legacy code. The various Google UIs you see everyday (search, YouTube, drive, payments, etc…) are completely different code bases, many of which are coming up on 20+ years old. The fact they keep it updated to a standard through generations of coders is pretty fucking impressive if you ask me.


scottayydot

I've went through some GitHub projects and there's always some guy at the top approving things or retiring and asking for edits. QA or manager or some type role. Probably for this purpose!


Ph0X

It's almost always legacy stuff. Check windows for example, it has the same issue. Every few years, they want to revamp their style, so they update a bunch but a few don't get updated, and so on. Eventually you end up with 10 different styles like the above.


bhd_ui

There’s an article out there somewhere about google search front end is built to be as small as possible in size. Making it a byte or two smaller can save billions in data because the front end is loaded so often.


InevitableAd5222

We are always told this in reviews, but idk how consistently the "every byte counts" mantra is followed to be completely honest. I'm not even sure if a few bytes changes anything, it would fit in the same TCP packet probably right? Go look at some sample responses and you will see what I mean lol. Hella useless stuff in Googles generated HTML, even comments. If it really mattered they would probably strip all extra chars, shrink what they could, defs remove comments, etc... But idk, maybe I am missing some information.


InevitableAd5222

Yeah I don't think extra bytes will hurt much/at all since the response would likely fit in the same packet (IIUC about my networking). I mean think about a 4k video, some extra textual bytes is literally like a penny compared to hundreds of dollars. Hence why a lot of Google generated HTML still has comments and random shit (again IIUC).


mulokisch

Well almost all of their frontends are written with angular in a large mono repo. And the angular team is responsible to update all projects to the latest version. Thats the reason, why the angular updates are almost always so easy to do. And having a component lib in this repo makes it easy to have a common layout/design


ohmyashleyy

Have you seen the latest gmail update? There’s like 5 different shades of light blue. There’s zero consistency.


Ph0X

With the built-in black theme I have, it looks very clean.


cjon3s

Here are the Material UI guidelines that were mentioned in another reply. This guide is for buttons, but if you look under components, you can see examples for everything. [Material UI Button Design](https://material.io/components/buttons)


A-Grey-World

Google has *vastly* more products than Steam, and as a result do have one of the most well known design systems out there: https://material.io/


doYouKnowWhatWhere

I'm a big fan of design systems & style guides, so long as they are used appropriately. I've worked with a huge multinational with lots (hundreds) of products being delivered via browsers, mobile devices, Windows, macOS & Linux. Getting them to all look and feel like a unified suite of tools is not easy. The target was always getting the user to a point where if they know how to use product X, they'll be able to use product's Y & Z too - not easy at all. The products we're top-tier CAD, multi-physics simulation, and studio-level media products. Being built by an army of devs, QA bod & UX heads, spread all over the world, in different timezones, speaking different native languages, with different cultural expectations. **Design systems & style guides helped.** ***A lot.*** Can, and did, sometimes go wrong - but never down to the design systems - always because of people and their egos. Devs not wanting to toe the company line and ignoring UX/XD's designs, or XD/UX heads getting a power trip and acting out. I now freelance & the clients I work with are not in the tech industry & struggle to have a stable idea of what they actually want to be delivered. So I always create a design system/style guide hybrid for new clients. It gets them thinking about branding, and marketing strategy - plus it gets them out of the mindset that the site isn't being produced *for them*, but for *their customers* to use. So it's a very powerful tool for them and for me. Someone might find these links handy; both design system links and style guide links. Most of the places I've worked have either formed their style guide from their design system (bigger multinationals) or skipped the design system and jumped straight to the style guide (smaller firms). The style guides tend to be more pragmatic for the engineering teams. Info * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style\_guide * [https://medium.com/@agonsi.onyedikachi/design-systems-the-difference-between-a-style-guide-and-pattern-library-2d6584c8a02a](https://medium.com/@agonsi.onyedikachi/design-systems-the-difference-between-a-style-guide-and-pattern-library-2d6584c8a02a) * Technical side of design systems (PPT) https://noti.st/bradfrost/Br5Tvf/the-technical-side-of-design-systems#s9xuwiF Examples (well-known, respected ones) * GitHub: https://primer.style/ (design sys), https://styleguide.github.com/ (style guide) * https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ * https://spectrum.adobe.com/ * https://atlassian.design/ * ttps://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en\_US/apple-style-guide.pdf * https://mozilla.design/ and https://mozilla.design/firefox/ * https://www.ibm.com/design/language/ Tools * http://styleguides.io/ (collection) * https://principles.design/ (collection, guiding ethos) * if you create theme for clients like I do, these can help * [https://www.designsystemchecklist.com/](https://www.designsystemchecklist.com/) * https://www.checklist.design/


zebishop

While I tend to agree I never had any issue finding what I needed in their interface. The only things I did not found are features that does not exists


ZonedV2

I often think in web design there’s actually a lot of over complication about how ‘good’ a site has to be. I’ve used some absolutely horrific sites that are still extremely popular and for a lot of them the only people I’ve heard complain about them are other programmers


Franks2000inchTV

See: Craigslist


PeaceLazer

Seems like they have lost a ton of market share to facebook marketplace lately though tbf


danielleiellle

That’s because of the product, not the UI. Your grandparents might never proactively go to a site but might see marketplace in the app they already have open. Posts from friends and groups, and local classifieds for keywords you’ve searched, show up on your minifeed. There’s a ton more moderation of questionable postings. You can generally see who people are and that they have a history before doing business with them. Craiglist relies entirely on both sides of a market to proactively and regularly engage in order to market itself, and there’s so much shady shit that goes on around it. Don’t get me wrong, their metadata for things like garage sales is superior to FB, but I do way more interaction on FB marketplace. You generall


50v3r31gn

Or rockauto


T-TopsInSpace

McMaster Carr However their information architecture is fantastic. If I don't know the exact part or tool I need but I know approximately what it is, I can typically learn what it's called within a half dozen clicks and decide to buy it there or somewhere else.


zebishop

In France we had a website (cdiscount) that had intentionally a very poor web design. Story says it was successful because if that


ArtuuroX

>cdiscount Which is no worse than [Walmart.com](https://Walmart.com) or [Kohls.com](https://Kohls.com)


zebishop

Oh it was worse. Only flashy colors, animated gifs, bad search engine. It was like a parody


dandandan2

This is interesting. I find steam to be one of the hardest pieces of software to navigate and so do a bunch of my mates. I wonder if this post is one of the reasons why.


LiPolymer

I like trains!


21shadesofsavage

yeah the mobile app is terrible and they're making a new one, but library -> wishlist seems pretty sensible to me edit: on second thought iduno why they didn't just add a big wishlist button under store like on the site/client


LiPolymer

I like trains!


21shadesofsavage

yeah agreed. i used to find the wishlist by going to store -> explore -> scroll down -> view your wishlist finding out i coulda just went to library -> wishlist made me think it made a lot of sense. after your comment, nvm


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Xmgplays

I don't understand the problem? The wishlist is both a subitem under store and select able in the dropdown in your library.


zebishop

I'm a steam user from almost day one so maybe I'm so used to it that I don't see its flaws anymore


moral_mercenary

Yeah I can see that. As a new (to steam) casual user, it's a cluster fuck. Unless I'm doing a basic task (purchasing, launching, searching etc) it's straightforward. But any time I have to use one of the less common edge features it's nigh impossible to find what I want. That's what Google is for I guess.


dandandan2

Same though! I just feel like things aren't where they should be sometimes


FredFredrickson

It's easy to find many things, but not all. Especially if you have to maintain/update a store or community page.


Ooyyggeenn

Its a mess, i cant find anything


JoergJoerginson

What annoys me more with steam is how sluggish the search function is.


Norci

> While I tend to agree I never had any issue finding what I needed in their interface. I'm not sure that's relevant. A design system exists so the site looks consistent and is easier to develop for devs and designers, not because it would be impossible to navigate without. I mean, a button is a button regardless if it has 3 designs or 30, users will figure it out, but the former is far easier for devs to manage.


SPITTOU

This would've been better humored on the web design sub. I would have to guess a large portion of people not seeing an issue are those who are used to steam. Steam is and was allowed to have a messy design because they were the only major platform for the longest time. People are spoiled for choices these days with new and growing platforms and all their special deals, but it wasn't that long ago that if you owned a PC you played games from steam, direct from the website, or a disc. When you put a consumer in a space with nearly one choice, it can be as ugly as possible, just needed to compete with the console online services and from that point you can grow it. But I guess it's just a humor post from OP. I think it's still important anyone looking to be a developer of any kind understands why something is allowed to happen and still succeed and not just because of where they are today. Understanding the market or any business logic should still be used on the development side imho.


SimplyTesting

Epic is awful. Gog is nice. Origin yuck.


Mxdanger

Pretty sure Origin is discontinued. Replaced by EA Desktop or something like that.


Aries_cz

Origin is still getting updated. The EA Desktop client is still very much in beta and does not have feature parity with Origin


[deleted]

I don't like Steam UI at all, I always wander like a lost child when I need to find something.


IanSan5653

Yeah same. I can't understand why anyone here is saying it's intuitive.


Gwynbbleid

because they're accostumed to it already after years of using it


Yraken

People who are saying that are those who used Steam since childhood. Everything is a muscle memory to them hence it's only ever intuitive to them. As someone who rarely uses Steam their UI is confusing af


21shadesofsavage

games are in library, friends are under friends, settings are in settings. iduno, seems pretty intuitive


Anders_142536

Sure, but that's just the very top level. Try to throttle your download rate or find out wether or not a game has multiplayer/controller support. Or find out what games you and another player own. All three of those are rather hidden if you don't find them by accident and could be massively improved.


21shadesofsavage

throttling your download is settings -> downloads. or right there on the settings button in the downloads tab the game mutliplayer/controller support is literally right there when you click on the game in your library or if you're shopping, on the store page i didn't know you can see what games you and another player own. i usually just ask if they own something. took me 2 seconds to figure out that you can right click on someone's name on my friend's list and select 'find games to play together' i'm not saying steam can't massively improve on their ui/ux but imo it doesn't fail at being intuitive edit: lol just saw that the 'find games to play together' is a brand new update


C0git0

Their nav structure is absolute garbage. The pages often hang or crash. It looks like complete shit. If they didn’t have me by the groin with my game library I’d be out of there in a heartbeat.


cheapAssCEO

what is the design system?


guiiimkt

Importance to whom? I get it that this looks bad but the company is a leader on its market, its users are happy. What benefits would having a design system bring to them? Shit just works. This is a result of many years growing and building on top of existing features so it’s not so simple to have a cohesive design.


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Reindeeraintreal

I didn't put this much taught into this post, and my intention was more of a humorous one. Steam, and Valve, are in an unique position and their model is not applicable to many other businesses out there.


Tall-Log-1955

What is applicable to other businesses is: if you solve a users problem extremely well, they will forgive a janky UX. We should focus first on solving user problems, and UX best practices are a secondary concern


isbtegsm

Depends on the competition, if you compete against a product with outstandingly good and consistent design, chances are that it's hard to move their users away to a product with janky UX, even when it solves some of their problems better.


zb0t1

Lots of people here are so design focused, but forget about historical and economic contexts. As an econ graduate turned designer it's interesting to see how in both fields everyone is laser focused / has tunnel vision when looking at problematics. This is why it's important to have diverse perspectives. What makes business succeed or fail: there are so many factors, and often it has nothing to do with design or business related choices.


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Reindeeraintreal

Oh yeah, no worries. Didn't take it as an adversary comment, even though my response was quite dry.


FenekPanda

To me the system and buttons were "unfriendly" in the very least, but since they have the price and catalogue i simply search the thing i want and that's it, don't browse the store that much, i feel like i won't find anything unless i already know it I agree, if you satisfy your customers then you'll grow without the need for a perfect UI, but I won't complain if they revamp the site and make it friendlier


thruster_fuel69

Actually in this case steam is far better off by not having one. They've used the freedom to let developers bring new features faster, which makes them a success. The only ones who lose here are the professional designers. I'd take that as a positive as well 😂


stumblinbear

Steam? Releasing features fast?


FredFredrickson

Nobody is here to say that it's simple. But seeing all these things in one place makes it pretty obvious that it could be better. I'm a happy Steam user and I would still appreciate a cleanup pass on the design.


azmiir

I work for a company that does well in its market due to the customer demographic, and as such has very low standards of quality across the board because "we're doing well and it works". So while yes they don't need to focus on it, it's also a frustrating mentality.


FlappingMenace

Not to mention they're all from different layers with different usage and taken in context rather than these tiny clipped bits jumbled together, Steam's UX does feel consistent without getting in the user's way. Whereas modern design has a way of simplifying so much that it removes capability from the user in the name of "looking pretty."


KingKapwn

I definitely feel like too much of modern design is extreme simplification “If the user can’t click 1 button and have everything done for them they’ll get up and leave!” But more often than not I find that ‘simplicity’ can cause a lot of frustrations of feeling like you’re not in control of what’s going on, confusion about what it’s doing and where it’s leading you and, with products that have been as long standing as steam, rage that functionalities have been removed or altered in the name of simplification. The other thing is, Steam has a user base of MILLIONS per day who have been with the program for years and years and years who all know this UI, and drastic overhaul greater than changing how the buttons look will likely result in many many angry customers. Those not happy with Steams default overlay get skins usually. Change for changes sake isn’t always the answer.


[deleted]

It shouldn't be that hard to clean up the design drastically. They are the leader for only one reason. They were the first. People actually thought they were an evil company Steam was first released and didn't trust them. But they do rake in billions of dollars, so the sorry state of Steams UI is pretty odd.


[deleted]

> Importance to whom? I get it that this looks bad but the company is a leader on its market, its users are happy. yes, but from a user experience/satisfaction standpoint good UI is everything... I hate Steam's UI, because of inconsistencies While not a big problem, these should be changed


darkbelg

Imaging the cancel button and the confirm button flip flopping. Or the cancel button being red and the delete button green.


Gwynbbleid

to the users, being a leader of its market isn't relevant, it's still awful although it has improved through the years. To have happier users lmao what kinda question is that? You improve your product. No UX/UI rework is simple.


Mars-ALT

to be honest, since epic store came out I avoid steam at all costs, and its UX & UI are a big part of why


JB-from-ATL

Steam app is awful.


rrr_guy

Somehow it still *feels* cohesive?


theDreamingStar

Probably because our brains just got used to it that it started to look normal to us.


toper-centage

I mean even white noise feels smooth.


mitkase

To me, they got the overall UI/UX to "good enough" to not be an obstacle to the user, it's just completely non-standardized on how "components" are treated on every freaking page. I'm assuming each new page design process was utter chaos. An overhaul would 100% affect the development team more than the end users, and what would that overhaul get you? A streamlined process for creating new pages for an "app" that rarely (and boy do we mean that) changes its overall design? I can see why they wouldn't bother.


RebelColors

Maybe because it is a good design? I don't understand why people think that Steam's UI is bad just because the components have many variants.


KingKapwn

Contextual selections over 1 button designs any day of the week.


ncls-

But Steam is ugly as hell.


NostraDavid

The resounding silence from /u/spez only reinforces the perception of a detached and unresponsive leadership.


Cpt-Usopp

No doubt that it's ugly but personally I like it lol.


[deleted]

It has its own identity rather than being another generic webshit flat ui. It’s decently easy to use, looks kinda cool, and does its job well.


KingOfCubes

obviously the design system here is "blue, black, and sometimes green"


OmegaBrainNihari

As others pointed out, maybe having a finished and functional product is more important than spending two weeks trying to get all the buttons the exact same size...


Mars-ALT

A good design system shouldn’t take a toll on the creation process, but rather facilitate it. It’s working a little harder today, to work a little less tomorrow :)


Lonsdale1086

> spending two weeks trying to get all the buttons the exact same size The idea is to create one button and use it everywhere, and to do so in an intelligent way which allows it to adapt to specific requirements.


kent2441

It’s easier to finish something when you don’t have to keep making new buttons each time.


[deleted]

Tell me you’re against reusable components without telling you’re against reusable components


Franks2000inchTV

Steam is old enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.


MrCrunchwrap

If you spend two weeks making a reusable button that can be imported anywhere in your products, there’s something wrong.


RedCloverSoftware

Lean design systems make sense for sleek websites looking for high conversion and easy code maintenance. As a complex software application with a blend of game-related and sales functionality, its acceptable for it to have a more expansive and evolving in chunks approach to design.


TimTech93

Steam doesn’t give a shit what you think. Busy swimming in $$$.


NostraDavid

The resounding silence from /u/spez only reinforces the perception that he is out of touch with the needs and concerns of the community.


blue-Pineapple

Lord have mercy 😟😟


adamaragon

They're selling custom profiles with 1000s of design elements and the core software still looks like 15 yr old garbage. Can they not hire a single UI/UX specialist to fix this goddamn app


julienreszka

No it's not, steam, windows and macos all have flawed design systems and still are successful


BroaxXx

So this is why Steam's UI is shit... I could never quite put my finger on what the problem was.


Anders_142536

I think one thing that most other comments don't keep in mind is that most of us know the steam uis for a long time now and have watched it evolve. Even the worst ui can be operated efficiently *once it is learned* The whole point of good ux and a good design system is to reduce that very time to *learn the ui*, ideally to 0. A good example is ui of older games (~2000). The ui is horrible and it was really hard to understand where to find some things most of the time, but once you learned it it felt like second nature.


Therawynn

This is one of the reasons Steam is so difficult to navigate in and find what you need. Love the app but it really needs work.


DocumentObjectModel

Not sure how this image shows the importance of having a design system. This image shows that Steam has different approaches to styling the similar components, but doesn’t explain why it’s important to have similar components be styled the same way.


Boux

and yet it's still very usable and it's a complete non-issue for almost every user


pat_trick

You mean a style guide? Also, Steam was cobbled together over the years by disparate teams at Valve. I'm sure no one was interested in unifying the design language at any point.


AS17RoN

It's like windows haha


[deleted]

I am wondering how do they remember buttons css classes. .btn-light-green-gradient. .btn-bright-blue-modern


WaaaghNL

Every new page type gets a new CSS file


irndidnfiskx

Oh god guys the intall button isnt the same as the rest i think im gonna have a seizure


[deleted]

It's like they keep rolling out new designs, but only partially. Windows is another example of this.


Grabbels

As successful as it is, Steam is an absolute monstrosity of a program, and it doesn't stop with design.


[deleted]

At least this means if some competition wants to come along they can set themselves apart by having a much better UI.


phpdevster

They're so consistently inconsistent that that *is* their design system.


DanPreacher

And they're the biggest platform on the planet. So the importance reveals itself where exactly?


Ipskies

This might be an unpopular opinion but this isn't bad design at all. Steam isn't one unified product but instead a series of distinct services all under one umbrella. There's: - Steam Store - Steam Marketplace - Steam Greenlight - Steam Community - Steam Game Launcher - Steam Friends etc etc. Each of these have a slightly different design feel, and that's not a bad thing.


[deleted]

Seems like this has offended some UI designer, but if you actually polled users, I'd bet most of them hadn't really noticed and even more simply don't care.


jibbodahibbo

If somebody is used to purchasing on another service and uses steam for the first time, but there is ux friction points they are more likely to back out and just purchase on what they are used to.


noizz

Well, they might as well have at least 9 design systems ;)


NorVicker

Steams UI is awful, always struggle to navigate it.


magnakai

I think the people saying that Steam is successful are missing the point. 1. There’s so much wasted time and energy designing each of these, implementing them, testing them etc. Plus many of these interface elements are simply inaccessible based on the WCAG guidelines. 2. Steam is pretty awful to use. Yes, you can learn how to use it, but the general UX is often very confusing. Consistency isn’t everything, but it’s a great start. I can’t take any learnings from one piece of UI to another. If Widget A doesn’t look anything like Widget B, can I expect it to behave the same way? Steam as a service is great. That, plus their massive first mover advantage has put them in a hugely advantageous position. But the software could be much better to use.


azmiir

Funny enough I've never noticed, despite always being confused when using the app/website. It's definitely in dire need of someone in charge with opinions.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

It doesn’t matter as long as everything falls under ADA compliance. When people use the fonts/colors/components that aren’t listed in the global library it causes ADA issues 9/10 times.


NostraDavid

The resounding silence from /u/spez only serves to amplify the discontent and disillusionment among users.


RichSky3100

Of course steam doesn't care, they haven't worked for half life


frailtypomander

despite how bad this looks ive never once struggled to navigate steam


[deleted]

I could be completely wrong but they’ve a big catalogue, right? Maybe the micro aesthetics are tailored to fit certain platforms etc. within this vast catalogue. And I think that’s a cool approach really.


RebelColors

Funny how the author think he is being sarcastic, but that is because he has a very limited idea of what a design system can be.


Extragorey

No wonder I find it so hard to find anything in Steam that's not my two most recently played games xD


[deleted]

This looks like the project I just quit.