Case Study

Nexus Mods

Nexus Mods

Technologies

  • ia
  • ui design
  • ux research
  • wireframing
  • community engagement

Overview

# Redesigning Nexus Mods **Project:** Nexus Mods Redesign **Role:** UX Research, Information Architecture & Design Oversight **Timeline:** 2015–2016 **Skills:** UX Research, Information Architecture, Heatmap Analysis, Community Engagement, Design Management ---

The Problem

By 2015, Nexus Mods was the biggest modding platform on the internet with nearly ten million members and over a billion downloads. The website, however, hadn't kept pace. It was desktop-only, visually dated, and riddled with UX issues. Navigation was clunky, mod discovery was poor, the upload process was confusing, and mobile users were completely shut out. My role was to lead the research, define the information architecture, and oversee the redesign by managing the designer through the entire process. As a daily user of the site myself, I already had a head start on understanding where the problems were. ---

The Solution

With the research complete and the IA defined, I worked closely with the designer to bring the redesign to life, overseeing the process from initial concepts through to high-fidelity wireframes and final designs. A 43-page InVision document captured every improvement, developed collaboratively with the Nexus Mods owners and community members. The final redesign was comprehensive. A fully responsive build made the site accessible across desktop, mobile, and tablet for the first time. Every flow was rebuilt: mod submissions, media uploads, commenting, search. Mod pages got a tabbed layout for quicker access to data. Each game's section received its own colour scheme and artwork for instant visual identity. Users gained personalisation tools to control what content they saw and how. New discovery features (tabs for new, trending, popular, random, and tracked mods) helped surface hidden content that had previously been buried. ---