Steam for Mac is coming in a week, and we can’t wait to try it out. But, I think it’s a given that the app doesn’t look very Mac-like and that Valve simply went for a unified interface design across all the platforms Steam will be available on.
Can Steam for Mac look better on OS X? Sure, and Sebastian de With (@cocoia) gives us a peek of what he’d like it to be.
Sebastian has indeed just posted a new entry on his blog, where he showcases a mockup and a replacement icon he’s made for Steam.
“However, the part I disliked about Steam on the Mac is the (understandably) less-than-native looking and feeling UI. While the entire application was recently redesigned (and re-engineered to utilize Webkit as its rendering engine), it still feels less than at home between the system apps.
As a fun exercise, I’ve redesigned Steam in a way that maintains consistency with its own UI conventions and values, while changing look and feel to make it more native to the Mac platform.”
And I’m telling you, the mockup looks good - way better and more consistent than what Valve’s currently shipping. Perhaps the designers behind Steam will consider design choices like these someday? We hope so. In the meantime, check out the screenshots below and head over Sebastian’s Flickr stream for some other UI goodness.
