Launched: Dragonflight, Patch 10.0.5
Role: UX Design, UI Art, wireframes/prototypes

There is a saying among some in the World of Warcraft community: transmog is the real end-game. Ever since transmogrification was introduced to WoW, players have found myriad creative ways to express themselves to others while they travel around the world. Each new appearance acquired introduces more opportunities to tell your story and showcase what is important to you and your character. What if there was another avenue to unlock new items and give players fresh and varied choices every month, while encouraging them to keep playing the way they already love to play?

Enter the Trading Post, an evergreen vendor added to the capital cities of Stormwind and Orgrimmar.

Every month, players with an active subscription are granted a set amount of a new currency called Trader’s Tender with which they can purchase fun cosmetic items from the vendors. Players can earn additional currency by completing new activities every month, with a bonus reward granted just for completing progress.

As the UX designer for the feature I was responsible for the player experience from the ground up, working with many disciplines across the team to create a system that was simultaneously fun and rewarding for players while also being able to coexist alongside longstanding systems in the game.

How can we make this a fun and refreshing experience?

Along the development cycle we iterated on varying presentations of information, nomenclature, activities, and more. We conducted user research sessions with players to ensure we were working towards a system that would become a welcome addition to the base game of World of Warcraft.

Encouraging players to earn rewards just by playing the way they already do was an important pillar of the feature. To that end, we created a new pane to surface refreshed activities every month and to keep track of progress gained towards milestones and completion. It was important for the UI/UX design of the system for it to feel familiar to players, so that they could jump right in and start participating without added friction or a learning curve.

In the end, we created a fun new way for players of all levels to acquire new items and to engage with activities that take them across all the corners of the world.

Read the full introductory blog post about the Trading Post here:

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23877463/introducing-the-trading-post