What is Steam ?
Steam is an online video game platform that allow users to buy games, share them with friends and accomplish challenges. I chose to redesign Steam because it have a lot of design issues.
Process
Empathize-Research
In order to find the issues in the current design, I conducted several searches.
According to my friends and reviews from the internet I’ve discovered that many complains are quite similar.
The most common remarks are :
• The Steam interface is labyrinthian and Steam’s architecture is very complex.
• The interface is aging and far from current trends.
• Visual overload is present on all pages.
Insights :
As we have just seen, Steam is a maze and has inadequate ergonomics, both for
current and new users.
A newbie could be very quickly destabilized and feel lost.
Estiticly poor and confusing. A lot of options are hard to find.
Page with infinite scroll, The use of “endless scrolling”.
Competitive Analysis
In order to design an original solution that is able to meet the needs of users, I suggest you first take a look at what is done by competitors.
I did a competitor analysis with 2 direct and 1 indirect competitors and assessed their strengths and weaknesses.
Define-User Personas
Ideation
Typography
Assistant Basic Sans Verdana
I chose these system fonts because they’re very readable and was created specifically for computer screens that contains a lot and small running text, in addition these fonts are simple and don’t loads on the user’s eyes, and yet they have friendly appearance.
Colors
These are the colors I choose for my color palette.
The vibrant colors contrast well with the dark background and attract the attention of the features,
I used this colors to emphasize the call to action.
The background colors symbolize futuristic space metal which is contrary to the site name “Steam” which is an old technology.
The Green color is commonly known as the “poisonous pigment” symbolize unnatural color, which blends well with the fantasy themed game world.
The Purple color means spirituality and imagination, which enlightens us with wisdom of who we are and encourages spiritual growth. It is often associated with royalty and luxury, and it’s mystery and magic sparks creative fantasies.
The Turquoise bluish color symbolizes calmness and clarity like diamonds or sapphire gems.
This color is also represented in numerus tales as the color of magical elixirs.
Those elements integrate well with the general theme that I tried to create which is fantasy escapism
Personal Thoughts
When I was in my studies my lecturer gave us a mission to redesign a whole website with a bad user experience and user interface. Immediately I choose to redesign Steam’s website, I choose this subject because of my personal passion to PC games, and because I had a bad experience with this website for a long time and always found myself confused there.
First, I started this project by understanding the problems that floats both either by asking friends or searching people’s opinion in communities over the internet to find out what bothers them.
Then, I had a better understanding on how to define the problems of the user interface and then I started to search how other gaming sites are designing their layout.
During this process I realized how important intuitive design is. It was a very interesting process to be able to translate the problems and implement them into a better design.