STEAM Redesign
Why Steam?
I am a long time Steam user myself and although the Steam client is accepted and working well on PC the mobile version both on Android and iOS was a very difficult to use, eye sore for me, my friends and for most Steam users. As a passion project and also as a course project I decided to redesign Steam mobile to make it more user friendly and appealing to gamers.
Apps used: Figma, Miro
Role: UX research, final UI design
Duration: 3 month
What is STEAM?
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by Valve. It was launched as a standalone software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to distributing and offering third-party game publishers' titles. Steam offers various features, like digital rights management (DRM), game server matchmaking and anti-cheat measures, and social networking and game streaming services. It provides the user with automatic game updating, saved game cloud synchronization, and community features such as friends messaging, in-game chat and a community market.
Problem
Steam is a well functioning and established programme with a strong community on PC for years now.
However people who would like to use the Steam app have to put up with outdated UI, and features that are inadequate to a mobile environment.
They create frustration and an unpleasant, negative customer/user experience. This situation leads to loosing current and potentially new mobile customers.
Goals
To update the app for today`s standards both features and UI wise. As being a mobile app people want more simple and more social focused environment so users can stay in touch with their gamer friends even without a PC. It has to compete with very strong competition such the Playstation Microsoft Xbox app and Uplay.
Design process
Research
User feedbacks on different platforms
As the beginning of my research I wanted to gather as much feedback as possible from the 2 main mobile platform Android and iOS and also from the biggest forum reddit. I collected the most useful and informative feedbacks for evaluation and to compare them with my interview participants opinions.
Apps in the same category
To see how other apps work in the same category I downloaded the 2 most popular ones.
The Playstation app and the Xbox app. They are both quite highly rated on both main platforms. They gave me a perspective what a modern gamer would like to see and use in today`s standards. Also myself noticed how much more fun to use them.
Card sorting
One of the main issue with the original app was the huge amount menus and different screens with overwhelmingly much information the users had to cope with. I carried out a card sorting exercise to understand more and get insight how users would organize and categorize different aspects and features of the application.
Interviews
I conducted interviews as part of my research, competitor analysis and checked customer feedback on both App store and Play store. All interviews were recorded with consent of the participants.
Participants: 10 persons (7 male, 3 female) age varied from 20 to 44, all of them are Steam users, some of them heavy users, few of them are more casual.
HMW
Persona
Customer journey
Design
Old UI
Wireframes
Final Design
Navigation: I chose to dismiss the side "hamburger" menu, where they tried to squeeze all the functions what the PC client has. Instead I went for a navigation bar on the bottom which makes important and most used features quicker to access.
Notifications: Instead of going through the menus just to see our notifications, I moved it on the main screen as "bell" icon. Also scheduled invitations for your friends as sending them an automatic invitation for a group party at your chosen time.
Library: Completely redesigned library with more relevant informations.
On the go: Messaging/Party feature got extra attention as it is being a mobile app. The idea was to make it similar to other messaging apps like WhatsApp, increasing familiarity to users.
Game profiles: Games are now tagged by categories, their page contains more important information. Users have easier and quicker access to reviews to make their decision easier.
Conclusion
My research showed that most of the users were extremely unsatisfied with the outdated UI and the overwhelming features, which were not suitable for mobile. Focusing on "on the go" features, like messaging, purchasing games from the Store and a completely new, fresh looking UI will definitely make customers happier and more willing to download and use the app on both Ios and Android.
