Warhammer Webstore
Redesign
Fixing a broken sales funnel
A conceptual case study
My role
UX Designer
Timeline
July 2024
The problem
The new Warhammer webstore's UI might be modern, but users are getting lost and the sales funnel is broken.
The solution
I trimmed and regrouped the webstore's navigation and improved the filtering options to create a smoother buying experience.
The results
Since this is a concept case study, I don't have access to all the user base or user behavior metrics. However, the small group I tested came away with a better overall buying experience with fewer errors and backtracking.
Some context
What is Warhammer?
Warhammer is a tabletop wargame published by Games Workshop and is played using miniatures that players paint and assemble themselves. Since 1983, Warhammer has spun into nine different games over two settings, the "grimdark" Scifi universe, Warhammer 40,000, and the medieval fantasy, Age of Sigmar.
In 2023, Games Workshop released the 10th edition of their flagship table-top game Warhammer 40,000. With it, Games Workshop updated it's webstore, which previously ran on legacy tech from over two decades ago. The launch of the new webstore has been....bumpy.
What are the users saying?
These were taken from a Reddit thread created the day the new website launched. As of July 2024, there are still threads created to discuss the current state of the web-store.
In summary, the most common pain points mentioned are...
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New and returning users struggle to navigate the new website.
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Users find the filters to be unhelpful.
A broken sales funnel
What we have here is a broken sales funnel.
"Can't run out of stock if no one can even get to the checkout before giving up". If a user gets frustrated and can't find what they are looking for, they are going to go somewhere else.
Let's dive into how Games Workshop runs their business and see if this truly is going to have an affect on their bottom line.
August 2024 Update: This section was going to have a speculative deep dive into the Games Workshop business model (physical stores vs. third-party vendors, webstore sales, etc.). But with new information released in their mid-year financial reports, I felt there was really only one important piece of evidence to prove a broken sales funnel:
"Reported Online sales have decreased by 0.3% compared to the same period last year. Excluding digital sales, Online sales decreased by 5.2% or £3.8 million. This was due to fewer customers ordering directly to and from home with us."
Putting aside financial reports and business models, let us get back to the users. Is the negative feedback just an outcry because people don't like change? Let's take a look ourselves.
The current state of Warhammer.com
Let's run a quick scenario and see what we are working with.
We are going to try and find some 'Ork Stormboyz'. Our local store didn't have them in stock.
The Warhammer homepage. Let's find our specific model. First I'll use the search bar since I know exactly what I'm looking for.
Ork Stormboyz found because I knew exactly what I was looking for. But what if I am new to the hobby and don't remember that they're called "Stormboyz" but I remember that they have jet packs on their backs? Let's use the menu to find them.
Here is where we run into some problems. Unless I know what faction they're in, how will I know what to click to find the Stormboyz? Each beginning bucket is a separate click that navigates to the next submenu. This is an odd UI and layout choice for desktop browsing. You'll find Ork models under the 'Xenos Armies' bucket after clicking around for a while.
We found our green friends! Now to find our specific Orks, the ones with jet packs strapped to their backs.
Finally! We've found them. With no changes to 'Sort by' in the filters, they were item #30. I scrolled past them twice. But I found them!
Takeaways
We certainly aren't using typical UX best practices for navigation, especially on desktop. But it's not exactly unusable. It's just not a pleasant experience, and wouldn't be my first choice for buying my plastic toys.
"This will be an easy project to tackle." - Me, moments before walking into the tangled web that is the Warhammer webstore.
Untangling the web
What have I gotten myself into?
Here is the full site-map of the current webstore. I began this project to get the lay of the land and to see what I am working with. With each section I mapped out, I kept finding more and more issues. A winding labyrinth of repeated information, inconsistent navigation selections between game systems, and a peculiar lack of fundamental user experience principles.
Where do I even start?
There is more than just some clunky navigation and some questionable user interface components. The more I dug, the less I understood. Who was this even for? I'm a repeat user and I'm getting lost. I chose to focus on the main issue: navigating the webstore.
Creating a standard.
I got out the trusty notecards, took the webstore out of my screen, and got a group together to participate in some Card Sorting.
Together, we all started to simplify one of the main buckets, Warhammer 40,000. I used the discussions and insights from my test group as the basis for this template:
Instead of 'Ways to Play' linking to a separate page (which doesn't contain correct or relevant information, by the way), it will be an entry point to the Core rules, Faction rule books, and the other games in the Warhammer world. Terrain, various items used to decorate the tabletop, will be its own category. This will hopefully lead to less confusion as users browse miniatures.
...Now draw the rest of the owl
Designing with fundamentals in mind.
Taking inspiration from the e-commerce world, the best practice is to use a mega menu.
As you can see above, the current webstore's UI pattern is strange and confusing for a desktop view.
Testing and results
I had four users participate in an A/B test between the current Warhammer webstore and my new design. I observed far less errors in finding both common and obscure products using the new navigation.
I was a team of one on this conceptual project, and four testing participants is a drop in the bucket compared to the vast amounts of user behavior I could have access to if I was contracted by Games Workshop.
To measure success, I would look at how users interact with these new changes, focusing especially on cart abandonment and task errors. If my theory is correct, I believe these simple changes could remedy the loss of revenue Games Workshop has experienced since launching this new webstote by just making the search and navigation less confusing.
But one last thing!
The filters
We have a good base to this sundae. Now let's think of the filters as the cherry on top.
One point made during some A/B testing between both the current store and my design was,
"You would think there would be more usable filters. Right now it gives me the option of... miniature kits. That is all that is on this page. I'm looking for a specific kind of miniature kit and I can't find it." - Ben, Tester #3
So, how do we filter and organize miniatures?
To play a Warhammer game on the tabletop, one must build their army. Over the years, as the rules of Warhammer have changed, army building has evolved with it. The community has made third party web apps and tools to help one construct their army, making an already complicated process less complicated. Here is how the most popular Army Builder organizes miniatures:
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Epic Hero
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Character
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Battle Line
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Infantry
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Mounted
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Monster
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Vehicles
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Transport
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Fortification
Compared to Games Workshop's Army Builder tool:
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Character
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Battle Line
- Dedicated Transports
- Other Datasheets
Other Datasheets really does a lot of heavy lifting here compared to the much more specialized list the community created on their own. Games Workshop's "Other Datasheets" encompasses anything from tanks to jet planes to little goblins called 'Gretchin'! The Warhammer community has already come up with a better way to categorize specific miniatures to help make building armies easier.
Using language and categories the community is already familiar with as tags, users can find very specific miniatures rather than searching through humongous categories for one item they might not even find.
What was learned.
Since I've been working mostly as a solo designer, scope creep has typically been my Achilles' heel. Past Me wasn't as good of a project manager as Current Me, and it was nice to pursue one problem at a time.
It was also great to go back to the fundamentals of user experience. I hadn't worked with webstore navigation systems since my UX program almost four years ago. Comparing the struggles I had then to my approach to a project like this now showed how much more confidence I have as a designer. If I had more resources and time, I would explore a new customer's experience of Warhammer, from learning how to paint to playing the game. I'd love to play a part in making the hobby as easy and hassle-free as possible using design so they can have as much fun as I do.