Usability depends on general interface designs, that’s so obvious it doesn’t even need to be explained. While the interface is generally a good example of design, In most cases there is room for improvement.generally with small but very effective changes because they provide the user with expected-wanted-required features that can be implemented without having to make major changes.

Two recent examples can be found in Spotify’s playlist shuffle button, or a few months ago in Netflix’s double-thumbs button (and an interesting story about how it got to the platform). They are, as I said before, response to functions requested by userswhich show us that certain types of changes can be applied quickly and easily, and that users will quickly identify and adopt these changes, which is a much more sensible step than completely modifying the interface to make each change.

A recent example of this type of change can be found in Steam, Valve’s gaming store, just added a new feature related to free games. Have you ever seen a free game (either permanently or for a specific event) and want to add it to your library but not download it? Until now, when you indicated that you wanted one of these games, the Steam client automatically started the installation process, causing it to cancel. That’s not a big deal, of course, but it’s clearly a formula that could be improved.

And it turns out that Valve has taken note of user comments in this regard and with the arrival of the latest Steam client update now lets you add free games to your personal library without going through the download process. For this purpose, a new button has been added that will allow us to perform this action directly from the main page of the game in the store:

After pressing it, a message will appear confirming that it has already been added to our library

and when checking we will see that the game is already shown in the list

Of course, this feature only makes sense in the case of free games, because if we are talking about paid games, the installation process will not start automatically. Instead, at the end of the purchase process, on the displayed page, we will see a link to activate the installation process. If we do not press it, the game will already be in our library, but it will not be installed.