Steam Releases Desktop Update Redesigning The UI And Improving Notifications

The latest Steam Update has been released today which brings in a fresh coat of paint for the UI as well as richer and more useful notifications.

New Steam UI and In-game Overlay

The key feature of this update is the improvements to the UI in the main Steam app as well as with the in-game overlay. The overall design is mostly similar to the original but is now a lot more ‘blue’ and the navigation bar text is bolder and the selected page is more obvious with a blue underlined highlight. The In-game overlay has been completely overhauled bringing in new utilities and more customizability. It features a new toolbar which gives you access to anything you need in the middle of a game from friends chat, achievements, progress, guides, discussions a browser and more all in a more tidy and convenient design plus you can pin these to your game with adjustable opacity levels. Steam has also introduced the new notes app to this in-game overlay allowing you to jot down notes about the current game you are playing.

Improved Notifications

One of the other key additions to the UI is the improvement of the notifications tab. The redesign has made the tab limited to just new notifications and only lights up green when you actually have a new notification. Old notifications can be seen in the View All page and the notification specific settings allow you to alter how you see notifications.

Where Can I Learn More

All in all these are some nice improvements to the Steam platform with a subtle improvement to the main app and a major improvement to the in-game overlay. You can learn more about all the changes on the update blogpost.