As of July 2021, a staggering 89.66% of Steam users are running the service on Windows 10. This has a number of implications, but there is one issue that I share with all of my Win10 gaming brethren that has bothered me to no end. When Steam or Windows notifies you about anything, it gives you a very familiar little pop-up in the bottom right corner of your screen. This becomes an issue when the game you are playing is also using that space to provide important information, such as player health in an RPG, remaining ammunition in an FPS, or the “next turn” button in a turn-based strategy game.
So what exactly is happening?
In games across all genres, UX designers love to stick important information in the corners of the screen, and with good reason! Keeping key UI elements in the corners of the screen
minimizes how much time players need to search for UI elements by maintaining consistency across titles,
keeps the gameplay front and center, allowing it to occupy the majority of the window, and deservedly be the center of attention, and
makes it easier to scale the UI to fit a variety of monitor/tv resolutions, as the empty space between the various elements can be reduced without compromising the legibility of the UI elements.
The problem arises when Steam wants to tell players that an event has occurred, such as a friend logging on, starting a game, or sending a message. Suddenly, information is obscured and buttons can not be pressed. If the gameplay demands that information or that input, players then have to wait for the notification to disappear before they can resume their game.
But is it just Steam?
Of course not! Operating systems such as Windows and IOS are more than happy to notify users whenever something they deem important occurs. Every app I download onto my phone seems to want notification permissions these days. Some games even show notifications to inform players of in-game events. A handful of these games are guilty of obstructing their own UI; Pokémon Go's notifications cover a good portion of the top of the screen and can get in the way of playing the game.
So what can we do about it?
Fortunately, there are a handful of solutions to this problem. Steam and Windows could delay these notifications until certain criteria are met, such as the game being closed. The main problem with this solution is that some of the notifications generated are time-sensitive. Delaying these notifications for 15 minutes, or a few hours, could result in worse scenarios than briefly disrupted gameplay. Malware and low battery notifications, for instance, should absolutely take priority, as these are issues that, when left unaddressed, would be disruptive at best and could lead to lost work or software function issues at worst.
Another solution is that UX teams can keep information out of the most commonly used notification areas. The main downside of this solution is that it ideally would require coordination across multiple platforms. Getting Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, Steam, Origin, and the Epic Games Launcher to coordinate notification placement on their respective platforms seems like a high, but plausible, amount of effort, largely because all are companies (or divisions thereof) that are dedicated to providing the best gaming experience they can. Windows and Apple are both considering far more than obscuring games when placing notifications however, and rightfully so. Any coordination on their part would likely be overshadowed by their other needs.
While neither of these two are perfect solutions on their own, there are four much more feasible steps we could take to improve the situation:
For notifications that games create of their own accord, some information could be delayed until the player reaches a screen where other gameplay elements will not be obscured, such as a loading screen.
Each screen could be constructed in a way so that there is always an appropriate area for notifications to appear without hiding critical elements. For example, Pokémon Go's menus could be moved away from the top of the screen to allow notifications the space they require.
Make a dedicated notifications screen, accessible via a button similar to social media sites. This way, players can still see the notifications they receive, but when they feel that doing so will not interrupt their gameplay.
Give players the ability to choose where their notifications appear. This allows players to choose what parts of their game they want to obscure with incoming information, and could even be done on a game-by-game basis. Since a variety of games utilize a wide variety of user interfaces, this solution could provide the flexibility to accommodate a wider variety of titles.
Give players more control over what notifications they recieve. Windows, for the many, many other thoughts I have about the OS, did eventually allow me to decide how important each category of notification was. Giving players the power to decide what is important enough to interrupt their gameplay can reduce the amount of frustration these notifications can generate.
In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me if you have a topic you would love to see me dive into, or even if you just enjoyed the article!
-Mark
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