Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[LoIi]

New interface design is nice and sleek, but is dreadful to say the least. It doesn't have that nexusmods feel to it, it's bland and unappealing to the eye. The mod spacing went downhill. Very laggy and skippy when scrolling. The pop-up search bar is heavily unnecessary and browsing for mods now feels like a chore instead of a breeze. Having an option to use legacy would make a lot of people happy.

Edited March 18 by LoIi

[SynthetiXxX]

1. The New, Updated, Trending, and Popular mod category tabs on the main page no longer counts how many mods are in that category, so I have to click to inspect what mods are now present. If I check Witcher 3's page once daily for new or updated mods I no longer can just rely on the number statistic going up or down in the New/Updated category, I have to click that category anyway. I think people would appreciate a number statistic over an icon, or rather why not have both instead of one or the other?

2. Collections hot-bar wastes and obstructs too much space. Old Collections bar was better.

 

Using the search bar actually brings up the mod I'm searching for now, so there's that. No longer will I get 10,000 translation mods or simply "No Results Found" and then have to go to Google to get the mod I want anyway - Kudos for actual search bar

 

[gorp0912]

This has become borderline unusable. Discoverability is gone and only a fraction of the previous information is displayed on the screen.

Old doesn't mean obsolete, no sense redesigning the wheel. And as said before, pandering to mobile doesn't make sense, because people aren't modding on mobile.

[LiloLila]

  On 3/18/2025 at 4:32 PM, OTK7 said:

try to just refresh the page, it won't redirect

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I mean, when I'm not on the main page. But I guess, I'll just have to add a bookmark. and simply not use the game button.

[ShiggyBoi]

The new website design looks genuinely awful, the old one was so much better. It's like they took all the bad parts of the old design, kept those and ditched everything else.

I don't use vortex, but I'm still forced to scroll past the collections tab every time I wanna check mods on a game.

Previously you could see the exact date a mod was last updated from the preview on the mods page, now it just gives a general time, (For example, previously a mod might have said "Last update 25 July 2024", but now it instead has a vague logo with just the text "8 months ago" instead.)

The iconic orange Nexus mods color has been ditched in favor of a basic white, thus giving the website less of an identity.

The website now has even more empty space that isn't being used, (The old one at least had the background image, now it's just empty and black.)

Speaking of empty space, the spacing on the website is ALSO worse now, so less content is on display compared to the old one! (6 trending mods instead of 7, and only 16 mods on the most popular tab instead of 20.)

The new search feature is just silly, why keep a search box at the top if it only exists to open a search POP UP?? Just make it a search ICON instead and use the space up there more efficiently!

And last but certainly not least: Whose idea was it to make the top of every game's mod page a GIANT GREY SQUARE????????? I get that it's the designated ad space, BUT YOU ALREADY HAVE TONS OF EMPTY SPACE ON THE SIDES WHERE YOU COULD PUT THE ADS!

 

Rant over, pls revert this awful redesign.

[SynthetiXxX]

  On 3/18/2025 at 4:51 PM, ShiggyBoi said:

Rant over, pls revert this awful redesign.

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It's not going away, whether you/he/she/I/we like/s it or not. Nexus is going to Nexus. You can only recommend improvements and feedback based on what they bring forward on the site.

[Synthlight]

  On 3/18/2025 at 4:55 PM, SynthetiXxX said:

You can only recommend improvements and feedback based on what they bring forward on the site.

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Correction: You can yell into the void but it'll change nothing.
May people, me included, complained about how much space the new design wastes, and yet, it looks no different from the beta.

[SynthetiXxX]

  On 3/18/2025 at 5:00 PM, Synthlight said:

Correction: You can yell into the void but it'll change nothing.
May people, me included, complained about how much space the new design wastes, and yet, it looks no different from the beta.

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Not surprising in the slightest.

[Shichi88]

  On 3/18/2025 at 1:58 PM, Iluviel said:

Can you be more specific about which pages are lagging for you? What browser are you using? Do you have any extensions installed?

The vast majority of our users are on 1920x1080 displays and the new pages fit most of this screen width, some of them even go right to the edges (e.g. https://www.nexusmods.com/games/skyrimspecialedition/mods) when they did not before.

Did you know that you can set your default tab behaviour (https://next.nexusmods.com/settings/preferences) to Popular 30 Days? Although we need to sync up the preferences still to match the new pages, this does mean you can always see Popular 28 days without extra clicks.

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I am only browsing the MH Wilds page https://www.nexusmods.com/games/monsterhunterwilds , and the moment I scroll down to the More Mods section where it shows the latest yada yada it just starts lagging, the scrolling that is. I am using Firefox on a 1440p monitor. Its also funny that the page was totally fine before you ppl decided to change it, it took up my whole screen space and now its like some ugly mobile layout which I dont understand was any need for. Why even accomodate for mobile users? This is a PC Modding website. FOR PC's. Please prioritise PC users. And the default behaviour is not my issue. As shown in the attached image - before this change I was just able to click on the tabs presented to instanly see the latest for the last 7 or 30 days and now I gotta do multiple clicks to get to what I need. And the Collections being "in your face" is also kind of backwards. Why am I seeing collection thumbnails now all of a sudden? Just keep the collections button without any thumbnails which take up useless space for no reason.

Like no offence im sure it wasnt your decision but I gotta agree: Why change a working system? Why make it worse UX wise and UI wise? Its not aesthetically pleasing, it just became bloated and made the browsing experience worse.

[Shichi88]

  On 3/13/2025 at 8:03 AM, mfPixel said:

Hey everyone, head of design at Nexus Mods here - thanks for all the feedback so far.

I wanted to provide some context for the recent search changes. The old search system made switching between content types (e.g., games and mods) difficult, and only the "Mods" category had a results preview. The new quick search improves this by making it easier to browse all content types while allowing you to preview more results.

We designed the new modal to be highly visual. During testing, we experimented with a more compact list view, but most users preferred larger thumbnails, as images are often the key factor when scanning for mods, collections, and especially images. If you're solely focused on mods, it’s easy to forget that users browse other types of content too.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

• You can now activate search instantly with the `/` hotkey and dismiss it with `Esc` for quick access.
• Keyboard navigation is coming soon, so you’ll be able to search and browse without a mouse (if that's your thing).
• Search is now much better at handling inexact queries (e.g., “baldurs gate” without an apostrophe) and includes keyword matching (e.g., “fo3” will return Fallout 3).

The general feedback was very positive in testing and during the closed and open beta periods. It’s been interesting to hear from people saying it’s helped them discover more new mods than they previously would have. I understand that this is a big change visually from what you’re used to - there is some extra functionality to coming where the initial screen will show your recent searches and saved games. This will make the modal feel less empty when first opened.

Why the Colour Changes?

The updated colours are part of a broader design transition. We’re rolling out brand-new pages soon, and these changes help make the experience more seamless when switching between old and new designs.

For those who have been using the site for years, we know big updates can be jarring—I’ve had the same reaction to changes on sites I love! But these updates are necessary to modernise the site’s core architecture, allowing us to build and release new features more efficiently. We really appreciate all your feedback and are excited to keep improving Nexus Mods.

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If you wanna modernise, at least make the UX better not worse. I dont understand the need to change the site so drastically instead of doing small changes over the course of months or the likes, at least give us an option to fall back to the old layout, this is not any better for browsing.