Honestly ? in my extreme honest opninion ? Do NOT use steamworks for Skyrim .
Instead use
Nexus , its is more widely used by the modding community and the mod manager is a hell of a lot better at installing the mods then steam works if not more user friendly .
As for your question : Johnny's suggestion for SkyUI is indeed the best option .
It allows for wide range of customisation and in general beats the vanilla ui in all ways .
What Johnny did not mention , though it is mentioned in the installation guide, is that you will need to install
SKSE(Skyrim Script Extender) , if you don't install this SkyUI will not work .
And while i'm at it may i suggest this little tidbit :
Categorized Favorites Menu , i have not tried it myself as i had to reinstall Skyrim and all the mods due to some load order errors i was getting :s .
Second and last suggestion :
GopherVids on Youtube , i got most of the mods i use from his play-through vids .
Does a great job of explaining the mods he uses while being entertaining at the same time .
That is all .