Seems to be really cool, but there are missing text overflow reductions in the Steam client (the browser interface is working fine for me - firefox)

The categories drop down menu is a great addition, it makes navigating the store much easier.

Overall, the design of the new top bar looks pretty good! The "Special" section in the categories drop-down seems a bit too incoherent to me and I think it could probably be restructured and maybe split up into additional sections.

Looking at the old "Browse" section, I feel like that one structured it much more sensibly with Mac OS / Linux being in their own "Platforms" section, a separate VR section, Soundtracks being its own thing as "Additional Content". I think Free to Play, Early Access and Demos could potentially be something like a "Try something new" section maybe.

I think the software section is now hidden away a little too much as a single bullet point in the "special" section in the categories menu - previously software was given much more space. I assume that most software titles may not have been great drivers of sales and the sub-categories may not have added much value but I think putting software applications on par with "Soundtracks" is a little too much.

I also think it's weird that "Adult Only" is highlighted that much, I would probably tuck it away a little more at the bottom instead of it being a random point in the middle of the special list.

"For PC Cafés" is also a super specific thing that is irrelevant to 99.9% of users and is probably better placed in the footer or sidebar.

Originally posted by al:

Read more here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamLabs/announcements/detail/2379537344925141078

Typo in the article:
"We hope you’ll opt into our Store Browse Experiment to give these news views a try, then let us know what you think in the discussions."

Seems to be really cool, but there are missing text overflow reductions in the Steam client (the browser interface is working fine for me - google chrome)

I feel like "new and trending" being the default tab once you navigate to a category might undermine the appeal and point of the whole thing, since it just shows random recent niche stuff, including some with 0 reviews, which will not be of interest to people who don't like to research their selection thoroughly or dive in the most niche titles possible, which is the majority. That is sort of conjecture on my part but I reckon you have no shortage of data that could confirm it. Once people navigate there and see a selection of games that appears completely random, they will consciously or unconsciously associate it with not being useful, and might not come back. I think it's best to assume maximum laziness and willingness to give up early on the user's part. I'm not necessarily in favor of always encouraging oversaturation of things that are already doing well, but it doesn't mean only employing the opposite extreme of showing random niche things is going to be helpful in balancing it out.

I think the best default tab for this would be a special filter that mixes together hidden gems (games with a relatively low number of reviews but good scores) and stuff that is just popular by player count. Barring that, just popular things by player count.

I might be wrong, but I think if you want people to explore you should make it seem immediately appealing and rewarding. The first impression shouldn't be "oh, so I just wade through random new games myself again". I think most people will give up on that, most people are not researchers. Even I thought that, and I am a researcher by nature, I'm very open minded and I play lots of niche out there stuff!

Also to be honest I think hiding this feature behind a tiny menu item at the top will immediately reduce its audience by a factor of thousands. You could just insert the whole menu inline into the front page as another module. And it doesn't have to be the topmost one of course. I might be wrong, people might not want to look at so much text there, but it's not hard to remove the module and move it back to the top menu if not enough people are clicking on anything in it to justify its placement.

Lastly I think the selection of themes is way way too small to make good use of the potential of showing them. I'd find a way to display more themes one way or another. I'd even sacrifice the most niche genres from the genre list just to display more themes. Or you could make a carousel where every slide is a selection of things, genres on one, themes on the other.

I like the UI. But when searching by clicking specific genres there must be some kind of error. PGA TOUR showed up when searching for CRPG and I think just from a quicklook on some of the other genres that they need to filter more/better.

This is a good experiment. But you can't see what you are writing in the search. Correct it please.

Bug The text is leaving

https://i.imgur.com/n5bsrZ3.png

May I ask why "management" is not a genre/subgenre in either Simulation or Strategy? This makes it hard to find management games in my opinion, which exists as a popular tag for games but is not on the check box of terms.

don't like the new style of the menu bar https://i.imgur.com/SJGek6Q.png

Maybe do something more familiar, like this https://i.imgur.com/HpNW5rT.png ?

I like it, it looks better aesthetically, especially when you're using the search bar. The "Categories" dropdown menu is a lot better than the "Browse" dropdown menu we have currently. The only thing I'd like to change in the "Categories" dropdown menu is VR having some sort of it's own little section, which would give VR more exposure as it's more "out there" if it's not in the "Special" tab and I think VR just deserves to have it's own section.

The "New & Noteworthy" tab is also nice.

I'm going to update this more as I continue to use these new features, this was just my first impressions.

EDIT 1: there's a little bug, when you are typing something in the new search bar, the text seems to cut off too quickly compared to the old one, it's like the search bar is way too small, even though they are the same size.

https://gyazo.com/36a23ed68f3eb580ddf735a85eb0c225 (Video of the new searchbar)

https://gyazo.com/f17242d0ec70d9c644e89c38e4ebeee7 (Video of the old searchbar)

Really missing fantasy on main page :D

While the menu certainly will benefit from this plus on options, please keep in mind, that the client/browser can still work with it in low screen resolutions (or at least include a slim version for these).
I am very concerned, this might grow so huge, that it won't fit in my 1024x768 anymore.

increible maravilloso i facilita las cosas