I first showed the original website to 5 music producers who have never seen it before and asked them to navigate around and try to buy some plugins. While everyone was eventually able to get the task done, it still took as long as 7 minutes for some people to get to what they were looking for, which is quite a long time to spend looking for a single plugin. No top-level navigation, unclear “add to cart” button locations, and information all over the place. Oh did I mention the product prices weren’t listed on the product page? Seems like a very necessary detail and all of the interviewees agreed that it needed to be there.

The researching portion consisted mainly of interviews with these producers and musicians, then looking for trends within that data through affinity mapping. Producers unanimously agreed that information about compatibility and system requirements needed to be clearly labeled and easily accessible from the product page. Along with this, everyone also noted that they usually go to a website for VST plugins looking for a specific need and don’t really want to spend time browsing around, and that managing plugins should be easy and hassle-free.

COMPETITION

Through the interviews and my own competitive analysis, I found the biggest inspiration from companies like UAD, Xfer, and iZotope. Users liked the easy to browse catalogues and clearly laid out information regarding the plugins, so I took some ideas from these websites and used them as inspiration for my own.

All of this research led to our persona, Sunny. Sunny is your average musician/producer who uses a combination of different software to create music. They like to try new plugins and see what they like but get frustrated when plugins are hard to find or don’t actually describe what they do. Along with this, managing licenses for plugins has only gotten more complicated with every company having their own method or third-party software, adding to the stress of downloading new software.

Purchasing and installing new VST plugins for music production software is often tedious and overwhelming. On top of this, keeping track of software licenses has only gotten more complicated with the introduction to third-party license managers like iLok. Sunny usually knows exactly what plugins they need for a project and doesn’t feel the need to browse a full catalogue. There needs to be a better way to find and manage plugins so Sunny can continue to enjoy the creative process and not feel overwhelmed or discouraged from making art.

The website needed to be easily navigated from start to finish. A user needed to be able to quickly find a plugin, read about the product and its specifications, add it to cart, check out, and track/manage software licenses. I got to work on sketching what these screens could potentially look like, creating different iterations until I was happy with the ideas.

When sketching and designing wireframes, the biggest improvements I planned to make were adding top-level navigation, simple product and license management, and making product pages with clear information and purchase buttons.

Top-level navigation was needed for easy navigation between pages, as well as to sort products into their respective categories.

After purchasing a software, the product is no good if activating it for use is impossible. Having all your purchased software in one place to manage licenses is crucial for musicians who want to stay organized and not worry about third party software to do this for them, it's all right there for you.

Product pages need to be readable with the prices clearly indicated on the page first and foremost, but they also need to have additional information such as system requirements and compatibility information for many different users, and potentially have images, sound examples, and videos for even more product depth. Along with this, it shouldn’t be a difficult task to simply add to cart or get a demo.

I decided on a “dark mode” theme, taking inspiration from other popular plugin companies. The main logo for the company features a bright red on the “V”, so I kept that as the main color accent from page to page. The rest of the website remained black and white in order to emphasize and show off the images of the plugins themselves. Most of this software uses its own color and images have a lot going on in them already, so I didn’t want to distract too much from users looking at the product itself.

The home page features recently updated software as well as popular products that the company can display, showing the user some new stuff but not completely overwhelming them with products they don’t need.

Following the personas needs, top level navigation was added for easier navigation. With a simple search or a look in the plugins sections, getting to the right product is simple.

Product pages feature general information about the software and sound/video examples, as well as compatibility info, price, and clear buttons to add to cart or get a demo.

Checkout is familiar and easy to input information, keeping the whole process simple. After you purchase your plugins, you can sign up or create an account to easily keep track of plugins licenses and activation codes.

Voxengo is a wonderful company that makes great software for musicians and they were long overdue for a glow up. Having good products is one thing but having an intuitive and visually pleasant way to display those products can really bring your company to life.