Integrating Research, Design & Marketing: Ableton New Product Releases
Developing unified discovery methodologies to inform cross-disciplinary product experiences - a strategic response to organizational challenges and transformations.
Overview
Throughout 2023 and 2024, despite organizational restructuring and workforce reductions, we pioneered an integrated approach to product launch design. By establishing a unified research and discovery framework, we created a continuous feedback loop between UX design, art direction, and content creation. This methodology proved crucial for three major launches: the Push Upgrade Kit, Live 12, and Move - Ableton's first standalone hardware instrument. Our research insights simultaneously shaped the product tours' user experience, visual language, and marketing narratives, ensuring consistency and authenticity across all touchpoints. This collaborative approach allowed us to validate design decisions through multiple lenses, from user needs to brand storytelling, creating more cohesive and impactful product launches.
Turning constraints into creative briefing
Faced with technical resource constraints during the Live 12 launch, we transformed a limitation into a strategic advantage. Rather than rebuilding the entire web tour components, we focused on creating highly impactful visual elements for the tour's hero section. These designs and animations became the foundation of a cohesive visual language that extended across all marketing touchpoints. This focused approach not only optimized our limited resources but strengthened the overall campaign narrative, creating a more unified and memorable user journey from product discovery to adoption.
Integrated research practices
The Move launch exemplified our integrated research approach. By conducting parallel usability tests for both marketing and onboarding content, we created a comprehensive understanding of the user journey. The first research stream evaluated the overview page and purchase funnel, while the second examined the transition from web marketing to product onboarding materials. We approached these traditionally separate touchpoints as a single, continuous user experience, recognizing that marketing content, product information, and onboarding materials all contribute to user understanding and, ultimately, purchase decisions.
From test shoot to production
Our user testing insights directly shaped the creative direction for marketing assets and video content, creating a feedback loop between user research and creative production.
All coming together
Results
The integrated approach to these product launches delivered significant performance improvements across key metrics. During the two weeks following announcementof Live 12, overall engagement increased from 4.3 to 5.6 actions per visit, while bounce rates decreased from 51% to 39%. Homepage traffic saw daily pageviews grow from 13,500 to 77,500, and the Live product tour pages experienced a dramatic increase from 9,500 to 147,000 pageviews. Notably, the conversion rate for visitors who engaged with the Live tour increased from 5.53% to 8.47%, driving approximately double the traffic to the shop. The sale of Move units for the first 2 quarters exceeded forecast. Despite resource constraints and shortened timelines, both product launches exceeded sales plans while maintaining high usability standards.
Ableton
Established in 1999 in Berlin, Ableton AG is a renowned music software company. It specializes in creating and distributing Ableton Live, a versatile production and performance program, along with a range of related instruments and sample libraries. Additionally, Ableton offers its proprietary hardware controller, Ableton Push, and the iPhone app, Ableton Note.
My role
UX and UI Designer / Project manager / Coordinator
I led the UX/UI design work in collaboration with Marketing and Creative team. Worked on User Research and data gathering efforts. I coordinated assets delivery and communication processes.