Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[JustThatKing]

We are making changes to parts of the site that have not been updated for over a decade. This is part of our ongoing plan to improve your website experience when browsing or searching for content.
To see the updated pages, simply click the "Join Beta" button on the banner at the top of the changed pages and your device will be opted in.

The key pages we’re focusing on for feedback are the Games and Mods listing pages, as well as Game homepages. We have also released an early version of our new quick search, this is limited to mods for now, but we’ll follow up with further updates to include all content types. While there are some minor styling updates across the rest of the site, these pages have the most significant updates and are our main focus.

 

As part of the new update, we are removing the left and right side adverts on the new pages. Whilst adverts are a key part of what keeps the lights on, we felt this was the right move to try to improve free users' experience. 

 

Why Update Now?
One of our key goals this year has been transitioning to a modern site architecture. The current system is challenging to maintain, slowing feature development and innovation. Moving to a new framework enables us to improve the user experience, experiment with new features, and keep pace with the evolving needs of the modding community. While this transition temporarily mixes old and new designs, it’s a necessary step toward a better site. 

Key Improvements

A More Consistent Experience
Any site that’s been worked on for over 10 years will inevitably accumulate design and technical inconsistencies—think mismatched button styles, typography, and colour schemes. While subtle, these details make the site feel less polished. This refresh introduces a new design system, standardising the fundamentals of our colour palette, typography hierarchy, iconography, spacings and grids. These foundations underpin reusable components (e.g., buttons, forms, tags), making the site more consistent and easier to update. With this system in place, we can focus on solving problems and building new features instead of fixing small UI details.

Easier Mod Discovery
We’ve started with updates to browsing and searching for mods, including improvements to game pages and mod listings. Filters on the mods listing page are now always visible, making them quicker to use. The UI should be clearer to read making it easier to scan through multiple mods. Next, we’re enhancing search to let you find content across all types, including users, for a more intuitive experience.

Improved Accessibility
We believe modding should be for everyone. This refresh prioritises accessibility, ensuring the site is easy to perceive, navigate, and interact with for all users. Updates include: Support for screen readers, Visually accessible colours, Readable typography, Flexible input methods. By following standards like WCAG we’re creating a site that isn’t just inclusive but also easier and more enjoyable for everyone.
 

Refining the User Experience
Nexus Mods has grown immensely, adding features that make it what it is today. However, there are areas to improve and simplify while keeping the features long-time users love. We’ve approached these updates thoughtfully, aiming to balance simplicity and functionality for a diverse community. This is a challenge! We won’t always get things right the first time — this is an iterative process of improvements — but your feedback helps us refine and improve.

What’s Next?
The next big update focuses on search improvements, making it easier to find the mods and content you’re looking for. We’re also working on an overhaul of the mod page, this is a much larger chunk of work that we’ll aim to ship later in the year. We’ll continue to share our progress and welcome your feedback along the way.

 

How to give feedback

We are looking for feedback on the following pages:

• Game Home Page

• Game Listing Page

• Mods Listing Page

If you have feedback for us, please use these forms:

General Feedback
Quick Search

 

Please ensure that you have ad-blockers disabled, as they will interfere with the feedback pop-ups that gather your feedback.

Whilst we love talking through all of your feedback on the Forums or on Discord, we don't make any guarantees we will see it if it is posted there. We are primarily collecting feedback through site usage metrics and the popup surveys found on each of the pages.

[Qrsr]

I wish you add the option to let mod authors merge their mods, i have alot of mods i would rather combine to reduce clutter.

[Glitchfinder]

  On 2/4/2025 at 12:33 PM, lilebonymace said:

Your two survey links to https://surveys.hotjar.com/ don't load for me, even with a VPN.

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That site is on a lot of blacklists because it is used to track user data and metrics for advertising purposes. I would need to disable my ad blockers to load it.

[Karna5]

As someone extremely visually impaired (I'm legally blind), the new color scheme is slightly better. Thanks for that. It was helpful you let me toggle back and forth between Classic and Beta to compare them carefully, and while reading remains absurdly difficult for me (my vision problem not your issue), I can confirm that the beta scheme does help marginally.

Again, thanks.

Post Script: Oh my gosh, the new "Endorse" button on image share is so much better than Classic I could almost cry with delight. With the classic version I simply couldn't see if I endorsed a page and often un-endorsed by accident because I couldn't see the difference between "Endorse" and "Endorsed"

Now, with Beta, the Button changes color from dark gray to yellow! Oh thank you!  I no longer have to read but can use visual cues.

[AndalayBay]

Immediately switched back to classic. Everything is too big and all I care about are the top mods lists and the updates to mods I'm following and my mods.

[ElderScrollsManic]

  On 2/4/2025 at 12:53 PM, AndalayBay said:

Immediately switched back to classic. Everything is too big and all I care about are the top mods lists and the updates to mods I'm following and my mods.

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I second this statement. I'll keep Beta enabled for the time being since I won't be actively adding or removing many things during this playthrough anyhow. Though, I tend to almost exclusively use the 'Updated' and 'Top Mods' information and sort the pages according to it. Collections are useless for me to see, so an option to disable them entirely would work great. I understand the desire to promote the Premium feature of Nexus as well, so I won't complain much about that -- but must it be shoved between the Hot Mods and sorting list section?

If you've removed the side panel ads (which I never see anyways, due to using ad-blockers and VPN on occasion, etc etc), why not have the Premium somewhere along the sides instead? Rather than wasting your real estate, make use of it. Granted, I'm sure many would rather it be entirely removed, but again, I understand the desire to promote it.

[Elianora]

  On 2/4/2025 at 12:31 PM, Glitchfinder said:

I feel like I'm just repeating feedback that's already been given, but this is my first impression of the new game page:

 

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  On 2/4/2025 at 12:09 PM, Crystan said:

Also for someone who doesn't really use collection, it would be great if we could hide or move this section below the More Mods sections. Alternatively, you could make it a tab/filter in the More Mods section (like Updated, Popular, Surprise - see attachment) or find another spot where it doesn't interrupt the flow of the page. I understand the need for having a spot for it but atleast for me, it's a disturbance in the flow and overview.

 

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Just adding my +1 to some of these points. Glitchfinder is right about the game banner and stats taking up a lot of space so you have to scroll more "to get to the good stuff". Also the Popular Collections will forever be the same two, so it's fairly pointless, and I really like Crystan's suggestion about adding it to the More Mods section after Surprise!

  On 2/4/2025 at 11:54 AM, Sboob said:

There's too much wasted space in the new design. The area highlighted in the screenshot should be condensed.

 

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Basically same as Glitchfinder said. It takes up A LOT OF space just to let us know how many mods and collections there are and we can already see which game we're browsing from the top left corner.

I went to Paint to see if I could find a better spot for the info but I am no web designer and it my version is kinda crappy.. xD

 

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[Karna5]

I extremely dissent from complaints that the new page layout has wasted space or is too big. I took a screen shot and marked some reasons I love the new layout.

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There is no wasted space. The text is uncluttered. The buttons are much larger than before and easier to find.

Again, thank you.

[S1nonim]

Just why? This is really bad

[ElementaryLewis]

There are lots to say:

• I couldn't find the pops-up survey on each page. Yes I open them but nothing happen, so I write my feedback here...
• The dark theme isn't perfect. There is some flashy light in the background that make them greyer than darker. Which is harder to read.
• Also, the font text in Post/Comment and other page aren't perfectly white, in contract to the grey background I critic.
• For accessibility, it would be better we have "light theme" and a better colour contrast between the black/white and orange/red.
• Most of the description were written with the old dark colour in mind for visibility and accessibility as well. Now since the background has change but not the description, it breaks their visibility and hard to read.
• That goes the same for the default link colour. It was red, and we all make the rule of NOT using this colour to avoid confusion, thus to improve accessibility. Now they are orange, so old description that use this orange colour, people will think it's a link... but it's not.
• Please don't highlight "Popular Collection". I'm on The Witcher 3 and every day I have to tell "don't use popular mod because they are outdated". That goes to Collection, they are likely old/outdated/overused that hide recent and good collection that perfectly follow the today tendency. What I suggest it taking the same algorithm as "Hot Mods". Meaning one collection is created and if it took enough endorse/vote, it is temporally highlighted, and then never showcase.
• To add more about collections, don't hide how much collection. I visit every time a new collection is created, so I gave feedback (mostly saying if it properly follows the game version or would break it).
• (Also, I write a mod list as well which is not a collection... so having bigger advertise to collection than my mod list, that's not very nice of you...)
• remove the "New Today" and "New Week". That's a good thing.
• But removing the "Tracked Content Update". ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I use it to see comments of hundred mods, that's how I'm very active and always reply. PLEASE BRING BACK "Tracked Content Update"!
• The quick search is bigger. Good, but...
• Would you please sort the quick search as "Last Updated". Not as "Download". Or at least gave the possibility to sort the order. On The Witcher 3 and the majority of games, it's a problem to take "popular" mods that are easily old/outdated/overrated mods, thus hidden visibility to recent and better mods.