Steam has one of the largest gaming user bases in the world yet its chat system functions like a utility rather than a social layer.
With the recent controversy surrounding Discord and its ongoing challenges with monetization, many users (especially gamers) have started exploring Steam Chat as a potential alternative. Here are a few tweets that highlight this shift:
After seeing these tweets, I decided to take on the fun side-project of re-imagining Steam Chat as a better Discord alternative, with improved UI/UX changes. Even as a Steam user myself for ten years, I had no idea they even had the ability to make groups (reminiscent of Discord servers) and group channels. Working with gaming-related interfaces was a fun exercise. I’d love to take on more projects like this in the future!
Problem Definition & Competitive Analysis
The redesign process began with defining the problems with the current Steam Chat UI, core user pain points, and looking into the discussions surrounding the topic.
Steam Chat currently functions as a lightweight, small messaging tool rather than its own social platform. While it supports basic communication like Discord, it lacks a lot of structure and depth that modern gamers expect.
The key pain points I found on Steam through online discourse include the following:
Conversations are fragmented, isolated, and difficult to organize
A main reason for this is because Steam opens everything in separate windows. Although this allows for a lot of organizational freedom, it’s another action users have to take for something that should be convenient. I didn’t even know server channels and such were a feature, because of how isolated it was.
Further, multiple chat windows, settings, friend list windows, and more can overcrowd the screen very quickly. Tab-based navigation would drastically reduce the cognitive load.
Community-driven spaces and persistent identity are hard to discover
When Discord was first released, server discoverability was hard too. Since then, they’ve added a lot of ways to search through public communities and servers. Since Steam Chat has direct access to Steam, being a native feature, it could tie in to games already in the store. An example of how this would work would be like how Steam Discussions currently. There’s a button in the store page linking to the Steam Discussions for that game. The same feature can be seen with the Community Hubs and Workshops on Steam. Many games already have Discord servers, Steam should give developers the option to include a Steam Chat Server on their game page. In this way, gamers would never have to leave Steam for dedicated game chat spaces.
These are just the two main problems I found with Steam Chat. There are many other lacking features I could include in this list.
At the same time though, Steam already has a massive built-in user base overlapping with Discord users. This presents a clear integration opportunity. I compiled a list of things that would be nice to have on Steam Chat and changes users might like to see above.
Given these new changes success would be measured by:
- Increased in-client chat usage
- Reduced reliance on external platforms
- Increased time spent in community spaces and the “community hub”
User Personas
To further guide the redesign, I identified three core user types, their pain points, and their insights. These personas were synthesized from the community discussions I came across while looking into this project, and my personal long-term usage.
Solo Grinders
These users play by themselves but occasionally need to join group chats and servers for LFG groups (ex. Destiny raids, bigger fights, etc.) and for in-game trading (ex. Palia plush trading, Warframe trading, etc.)
Pain Points:
- Trading chats are scattered
- Limited chat history makes it hard to join old LFG groups
Key Insights:
- Needs a centralized social space
Friend Group Gamers
These users just want a quick, simple way to chat with friends without navigating complicated systems.
Pain Points:
- Has console friends
- Can’t share their game to friends
Key Insights:
- A lot of potential for Steam game invite/chat integration
Community Player
These users typically run groups, fandom spaces, or have a following. They need structure, better moderation tools, and identity features on Steam Chat.
Pain Points:
- Leaks lobby codes on stream frequently (integration potential)
- Manages too many platforms, a lot of link pasting
Key Insights:
- Automated tools potential
Identifying and studying these personas reveal a shared need: flexible social spaces that scale from small friend groups to large communities.
Identifying User Flows
Given these structured personas, I also wanted to explore how the current chat feature is discovered and how new additions would be implemented. There were a few problems I found with the current chat feature.
- Even though the button on the status bar says “Friends & Chat”, it really only opens the friends list.
- Further, it opens on a separate window, unlike the downloads button, which opens on the main screen.
- With the friend list open, clicking on friends still doesn’t do anything. You have to right click and select “Send a message”
- When you want to send a game invite, you have to right click and select “Send a game invite”.
- Sending these invites opens the chat anyway, but the chat itself has no option to send this invite, you have to navigate back to the friends list.
Here are the new discoverability avenues and user flows I re-imagined, with the discussed pain points, user personas, and opportunities so far in mind.
Flow 1 – Game Page Discoverability
As mentioned, having a chat server native to Steam is massively advantageous and would greatly benefit developers, solo players looking for trade/lfg chats, and community players seeking community. With this in mind, I thought about how current users navigate this problem. Currently, almost every game will have their Discord server link in-game or as a link in the store page.
Similarly, the community game hub, which is native to steam, as well as the Steam Workshop and Discussions can be found through similar means. Likely, I decided to use the same system to make native Steam chat servers more discoverable for users.
Flow 2 – Status Bar Re-Design
As mentioned previously, it didn’t make sense to me as a user myself that “Friends & Chat” didn’t really open the chat. Further, after researching and looking through the new discussions surrounding Steam Chat, a lot of users like myself didn’t even know Steam had a chat feature as in-depth as it does. One of my primary goals throughout this project is to change this commonality and display Steam Chat features up-front.
Therefore, I decided that rather than opening an isolated friends list window, like how the current Steam UI does, the “Friends & Chat” button should open a web-page similar to the downloads page.
The Steam Chat feature already has it’s own web-page, that I only found accessible through a web-browser but not through the Steam Desktop app. I reworked this web-page and re-imagined it as a core part of the Steam Desktop app, rather than an isolated web-only page.
Flow 3 – Overlay Integration
The Steam overlay already has the chat feature implemented, but having multiple direct message windows can become very cluttered, very quickly. While I can appreciate the freedom Steam provides to organize the overlay as necessary, Steam overlay users are using the overlay for quick in-game access, otherwise they’d just open it on a separate tab. The redesigned overlay had to be similar and familiar, but the chat had to be more accessible.
Sketches
I had a lot of work to dive into. The first approach I took was to sketch out what I had so far on a piece of paper, and tackle what I thought required the most of my brain power. I had never designed an overlay before. This was a unique new experience to me, reminiscent of designing a pop-up, floating chat bubbles, etc. I drew this out first and used it as a base because I figured this is the main way current users discover the chat feature.
Mock-Up
After all of my sketches were done, I finally dove right into a low-fidelity, then high-fidelity mock-up process. Taking the resources I’ve found, research I’ve done, and the work I had so far, I created the mock-up
This image shows three new ways to access the chat in the least disruptive way I could imagine.
- Implementing a new “Join Server” button alongside the current “Community Hub” button on the game page.
- Re-imagining the “Friends & Chat” status bar interaction
- Re-creating the navigation bar to include the new chat feature.
While the navigation bar I decided on was the one above, I also had an alternative idea that puts the new chat page much more up-front. However, I decided this was a bit much and could be too disruptive of the existing user-flows on the platform.
Finally, using the user flows I created, I decided on which screens were the most important to re-create and how they would look like. You can preview the new changes and screens I made below or through the public Figma page.
Outcomes & Reflection
| Current Steam | Redesign |
|---|---|
| Fragmented chats | Persistent Spaces |
| Right-click to message | Direct message CTA |
| Isolated windows | Integrated web-pages |
| Manual invite system | In-chat game invites |
This project challenged me to think beyond surface-level UI changes and instead consider how social systems integrate into a larger platform ecosystem. While the initial idea began as a redesign of chat, the process revealed a broader opportunity: rethinking how community, identity, and gameplay intersect within Steam. One key takeaway was the importance of reducing friction between social interaction and play, especially in a space where users often rely on external tools like Discord to fill gaps.
If I were to continue this project, I would validate my assumptions through user interviews, test discoverability improvements with usability studies, and explore moderation tooling at a larger scale. Overall, this case study strengthened my ability to approach product redesign holistically, balancing user needs, technical feasibility, and platform continuity.
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