Marzoopilami

Dear @mfPixel @JustThatKing and the Nexus Mods product team, First, I would like to introduce my real-life self. I am a Senior Product Designer/Manager with 20+ years of experience, back from the late 90s, and I'm versatile in numerous areas of design. While you buffed the UI design in terms of visual appeal, you messed up essential features and significantly nerfed the UX. Please consider this as free and well-intentioned constructive advice from a seasoned UX, UI, and Product designer with hundreds of successful projects. I'll cover the essentials but won't go into comprehensive feature analysis and deep-diving. Do not discard the list view; instead, offer users the choice between a grid and a list view. Both have pros and cons and exist for a reason. Avoid introducing unnecessary steps and UI elements. For example, the search worked perfectly: You typed in the box and quickly received relevant results as an autocomplete list. Now, you are opening an additional element (a full-screen "search" modal). This is always a poor decision unless there are justified requirements, which I do not see in this case. It confuses users and increases their uncertainty by giving them the impression that they have left the mods page, which is an undesirable psychological effect. Why does Google still use the simple and archaic plain text dropdown as an autocomplete results list? Because it has proven to be the most efficient. They could also introduce full-screen search modals and overwhelm users with additional "rich" content, options, and other unnecessary details. However, that would be a poor decision and result in a bad user experience and company reputation as "we're keeping it simple, but we always understand what you need". Users search for something specific, and instead of overwhelming, they are given quick and relevant guidance (a simple text list) without additional distractions that take time to scan. As mentioned, always keep it practical and contextual. As an exception for the Nexus site, mod covers/thumbnails that identify them quickly and some essential details, such as the last updated date, number of endorsements, and unique downloads, are valuable and valid information. Please do not open a new full-screen modal with huge tiles that require me to scan horizontally and vertically to find something. It's pretty tedious. Add a grid/list view toggle in the search modal as a quick fix. Even better, please remove it altogether. The standard search results page with filters has performed flawlessly and served its purpose well for years, and there is no need to complicate things without reasonable cause. Mod Status Labels Regarding the UI, some changes affected and downgraded the UX pretty directly. For example, mod status labels. Before, although rough around the edges, they communicated mod status clearly and efficiently, which is their only purpose. The current UI mod status labels are unnoticeable and bland. They're too light, greyscale, subtle, and unsuitable for this type of content, with many underlying, diverse and colour-wild mod cover images. And again, consistency. When a mod update is available, it's marked by an icon and text label. Upon updating, only the status icon is displayed in a small, almost invisible square, and all statuses have the same indistinguishable visual style. Suggestion: Why not use colours that are easy on the eyes but still very visible for different statuses, regardless of the underlying image? If you select a suitable palette, it could blend nicely with the new UI design. Maybe add a slightly visible border with a subtle drop shadow, outer glow, or similar effect to separate it from the mod cover image. Also, always use the same UI elements for the labels. It's your choice: background with icon only, icon + text label, or text label only. Consistency and Context Nevertheless, could someone kindly inform me where the Kudos button from the user's profile page went? Vacation, maybe? I can't see it when viewing the user's profile from here. Oh, I just remembered, silly me. It's accessible when you go to any mod's page, click the mod's author's name/link, and go to his (mod) profile. Easy-peasy... But that's precisely what I'm talking about: The user's profile should always be the only destination (user's hub), whether accessed from the mod, forum or any other page on the Nexus site, not vice versa. From that initial point, with all essential info and actions, you can further access all other user sections (mods, forum posts, activity, etc.). This is consistency at its best. Please - keep it simple, straightforward and efficient, avoiding excessive information and clutter. Most importantly, always remain contextual and consistent. Cheers!