Steam

The Steam application provides user with installation and automatic updating of games on

multiple computers, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and

in-game voice and chat functionality. The software provides a freely available application

programming interface (API) called Steamworks, which developers can use to integrate many of

Steam's functions into their products, including networking, matchmaking, in-game

achievements, micro-transactions, and support for user-created content through Steam

Workshop.

The good

The Steam application’s best aspects comes solely from its functionality and design. The

application is uniformly designed where each tab or function has its own layout and is

standardized between each subsequent page. For example, the store tab or page has its own

layout while the library page has its own. Each of the layout is also design straight-forward

where only the main features for each title is highlighted.

Figure 1: Main Interface or the also known as the store page

Figure 2: Community tab, where users can discuss on specific topics amongst each other

The second aspect where the steam application excels is from its functionality stand point. Since this

application is mainly catered to gamers its main function is the library, where all purchased software or

games are alphabetically sorted and (if the user wishes it) categorized in specific orders. On this page,

each game or software that is purchased and installed will always be automatically updated so that the

user can run it without any hastle. On this page the application also tracks the total playtime of the user

on each title, last played and date of purchase. It also displays friends of the user’s that has the same

title. If the game comes with achievements (milestones set by the developers for players to achieve) , it

is also tracked on this page.

Figure 3: Library interface, where games and softwares are organized, managed, and updated

automatically

In simplicity it is where form meets function, the application runs smoothly with almost no hiccup, the

design is very straight forward, so any new user can simply use it even with little to no knowledge, and

the functions benefits its target demographic.