Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[Isguros]

11 minutes ago, zzundeadzz said:

At least,I hope that they are collecting feedback, then pass it to their UI team

They've gone on record saying they won't make changes based on opinions and user experience.

"We disagree and aren't at this time looking for further input from UX professionals. "

"we're also not planning on adapting our approach based on feedback that amounts to "I do not like change"."

~lluviel 2025

 

Basically, if you say you don't like it, they call you a whiner and won't listen, and if you're trying elaborate, give them examples of what it is you don't like and why, they mock your efforts, call you pretentious, and ignore you as well.

[LilLupus]

If y'all are so convinced that only a 'vocal minority' is bothered by the UI, why not make a poll about it displayed right there in the front page, huh? I've never felt the necessity to comment on any Nexus staff decision before, but the way you all are just deflecting criticism over and over again on this thread is wild. 

Edited Wednesday at 07:03 PM by LilLupus

[HadToRegister]

1 hour ago, NiteFromWindhelm said:

Well that was rude. As we can see, everyone is now affected with this beta with no opt out. Sorry that me suggesting that there should be a news thing or something, asking for users to vote or say what they prefer made you upset. This beta clearly needed to stay in the oven a while longer.

Staff and moderation have been either hostile or blowing people off for giving genuine feedback. 

 

That's why I've permanently blocked the person you were replying too, because they're like Dracula's “Renfield” and always take the side of NEXUS, and then start flinging insults at the people trying to give feedback. They do it all the time, and act like they're staff, when they're not, and even managed to get some people banned by baiting them, Way back in the days of “Give us your feedback about Collections that we'll ignore” days. Which also shows where our feedback went for that as well.

[jaitsu]

All I've got to say is, what in the absolute hell was Nexus thinking..

This is the personification of form over function.

[ModEnjoyer52]

Sample size of complaints here is small, so all herein can be discounted as vocal minority noise, but it cannot be assumed that the vocal minority is not representative. The mass of users that continue to use the site silently without complaint also cannot be assumed to be happy.

My feedback in Feedback was erased along with a bunch of topics, I can't find them anywhere even under 'my votes', it's like nothing happened.

Webmaster is a member of the few who can see the light as is tradition with web overhauls, and site feedback now happens in this containment topic. We can 'rage' all we want in here, this is the vocal minority playpen.

Just providing some friendly commentary in this discussion topic, of course I don't mean to imply that the Nexus webmaster is not an exceptional individual with great skilfulness and foresight.

[Superdeathblade]

The new UI looks like visual diarrhea 

[Wuestenratte]

Concerning the "vocal minority": I've been Nexus user since the Oblivion days. This is my third post on the forums. I've never felt the need to voice my opinion here. Everything was fine - until this UI update. How many more are like me, but don't go that last step and post here (and just suffer silently)?

And to add some constructive stuff: I'll probably get used to the new design at some point. BUT. I beg of you, give us the option(!) to hide the collections. I for one was never interested in them, and will never be.
Getting rid of that element will improve the layout massively and instantly.

[AGiantPie]

Here is my feedback about the new UI design.

First off, I recognize the improvement to the mobile site. In my opinion, the previous mobile site was effectively unusable. The occasional time I tried to browse mods on mobile were a horrible experience and I had avoided looking things up on nexus on mobile specifically because it was so bad.

However, in my opinion, the new site represents a dramatic reduction in usability for desktop users, and I am primarily a desktop user. Luckily, I think it's mostly fixable. Here is an overview of how I use the site, my thoughts on how the changes impact my usage of the site, and suggested fixes to improve my experience and the experience of those similar to me.

Workflow

My workflow for when I go to a nexusmods game homepage is pretty simple (I'll use Skyrim SSE as an example). I type "nexus" into my browser, it auto-fills the SSE homepage URL because I go there so frequently, and I open the page. On the page I look at the 7 Hot Mods to see what's currently trending and if they catch my eye. If I'm doing more than a super quick check, I also scroll down and scan through the "New Today" section. I usually am on the lookout for player home mods, town mods, castle mods, and any patches or addons for existing mods that I use.

For the workflow described above, which I am fairly confident closely represents the behavior of many fellow desktop users, the new UI is really bad. I'll use some images and metrics to compare the two sites.

Hot Mods

Before: I go to the homepage, and immediately have 7 Hot Mods available for viewing with no other input:

After: I go to the homepage, and have only 2 Trending Mods available for viewing:

Result: 71.43% decrease in Hot (now Trending) Mods available on the "Splash Screen."

 

Scrolling

Before: I scroll down past a thin and unobtrusive "Collections" banner. It takes me 8 "clicks" of my mouse wheel to bring the "New Mods" section fully in view.

After: I scroll down past a much larger (though not that useful for advertising, in my opinion, see suggestion #4 below) "Collections" section. It takes me 13-14 clicks of my mouse wheel to bring the "New Mods" section fully in view. (13.5 clicks for metric calculation)

Result: 68.75% increase in the amount of scrolling I need to do. (In actuality, the amount of scrolling ends up being even higher, due to less visibility in each line as per the following issue).

 

New Mods

(Note: I had pictures for this section, but I hit the max file size with the above pictures so can't post more pics, sorry.)

Before: Now that I am browsing New Mods, I can comfortably scan through 2 lines of "New Mods," 5 mods per line, for a total of 10 mods comfortably visible at a time. The description of the second row of mods is cut off at any one time, but thumbnails are the most important part of the scanning experience.

After: I have to uncomfortably scan through 1 line of "New Mods" with only 4 mods in the line, for a total of 4 mods comfortably visible at a time. I can partially view the thumbnails for the second row of mods, but it's not a comfortable experience, and my ability to scan new mods feels drastically reduced. This makes me feel as though the new UI is greatly inhibiting me. I actually almost feel "blinded" or "crowded" by the large blocks of thumbnails. I recognize this is a subjective feeling, but it still really hinders me.

Result: 60% decrease in the amount of New Mods comfortably viewable on screen at any one time.

 

Conclusion

I am not properly equipped to measure other metrics like the time it takes me to go through the workflow before/after on an average visit. The metrics I can track suggest the site is less than half as usable for me as it was before. My subjective opinion is that it being about half as useful sounds about right.

I respect the need to accommodate mobile users as well as users who struggle to parse dense information and small font sizes. However, I also feel that I represent a fairly common user of the site and I feel like in the attempt to accommodate other types of users, the site has stopped accommodating my needs. I feel overwhelmed by the new site and I find it hostile to the workflow of checking the home page for New Mods. This makes me not want to use the site at all to browse New Mods or to check the site less frequently. I feel more inclined to use search functions or to browse through mod categories than to check the homepage, which makes me feel as though the homepage is failing to do its job.

 

Suggestions

Luckily, I have identified four areas of improvement I think would make a big difference. And I think if the changes were implemented, most of my issues (and hopefully the issues that others have not-so-eloquently espoused on this thread) would evaporate.

1) The "Skyrim Special Edition" banner listing # of mods, collections, and media, as well as the empty whitespace to the right at the top of the page should be removed (from the desktop site).

This area of the page is clearly designed for mobile users. Checking the site on my phone, I actually like the inclusion of this game banner section. On desktop, however, it is superfluous information. The game-thumbnail we already have at the top left of the Menu bar already informs us of what game we're looking at, and the banner gets in the way of information we care about. If we remove the banner from the top of the Desktop UI, that gives us a lot more space to fill the "Splash" / "Home" page with trending mods. (And by splash page, I mean what you can see without scrolling, which any UX designer should know is pretty critical for site impressions).

2) Slightly reduce the size of the Trending Mods thumbnails.

Trending Mods don't quite all fit on the screen at one time right now, even after scrolling down. I think something like a 10% reduction in size would probably be all thats needed, but I can't tinker with it myself so I don't know exactly the right amount of change.

I don't know how this varies between screen sizes and resolutions, etc. I might be a bit unlucky with my setup as to how small I need it to fit on my screen. Still, on the old site, all the hot mods comfortably fit on the screen at the same time. The new UI makes improvements to the descriptions and other info for Trending Mods, but the thumbnails are just a little bit too big and it ends up being harder to parse everything because of it.

I also acknowledge that making things too small is bad for other users, however, I think the thumbnails are pretty obvious pictures and the size reduction I'm asking for would not have significant negative impacts on others.

3) Slightly reduce the size of the New Mods thumbnails.

Very similar to the above, so I won't repeat it all. The point is that I would like to be able to comfortably view two lines of thumbnail images at once. I am willing to accept only seeing 8 mods at a time instead of 10, preserving the current 4-per-line, but 4 mods total is too few.

4) Collections section needs work.

For a user like me, who is checking the Skyrim SSE homepage for new mods to download, Collections are completely worthless, and their space on the home page is unhelpful. But I think the current layout is ALSO bad for Collections users. Collections are shunted down below the Trending Mods, AND you only get to see two Collections at a time, which is not very many. Also it appears like those Collections are the "long, well-established, most popular" Collections? So it feels like something that should be out of the way since it's fairly static information, it's advertising something that won't ever change most likely, unlike Trending Mods which change constantly. I'm not 100% sure the best way to deal with this, and where to put collections. I think that the top of the home page should be reserved for NEW and TRENDING items, including TRENDING Collections. A list of "Best/most endorsed" Collections does not belong here.

So to summarize, I would remove the current Collections section or place it below the NEW MODS section. That's not an ideal solution, obviously, so I think probably there needs to be some dedicated place for Collections to be hosted. Maybe the solution is to allow users to Re-Order their home page so it displays certain categories higher or lower? Maybe users should have the option to "Hide" sections they don't use? That might be enough to solve the Collections issue on its own, and if implemented then the Collections section could become bigger and look/function more like Trending Mods.

[byrdworker]

please god let us revert to the classic ui. the new one is dreadful

 

i hate how colorless and unreadable it is. i hate that you have to scroll to see new mods, i hate that collections are gigantic for no reason, it needs visual accessibility/distinction. it hurts my eyes, no more backgrounds or colored nexus logos, and to top it off it's horribly laggy

 

genuinely one of the worst updates in the site's history. fix it.

[kevuk85]

I there a way i can revert back to the old design i dont like the new one ?