Zildjian is the world’s premier producer of cymbals, and recognized as the oldest family-owned business in America. The legendary brand needed to further solidify its place as the market leader with a personal, customizable online customer experience, playing into the percussionist’s mindset of freedom, flexibility and independence.
Zildjian Cymbal Set-up Builder
MITX Award Winner 2014
Project Highlights
My role: Design lead
Collaborators: Client, strategy team, UX designer, development
The approach: Instill confidence in Zildjian to move forward with a personalized tool by helping them understand their online audience; continue improving their connection with their customers.
Featured deliverables: Sitemap, clickable prototypes, concepts, UI, development
Considerations and learnings: With a four-centuries-old company, it was important to maintain the integrity of the brand at every stage of the process, and every step of the consumer experience. It was also valuable to keep an eye — and ear — on the scope and complexity of the configurator, since every Zildjian cymbal, each with a different size and sound, could be added by the user.
The Outcome
Anyone that knows drummers knows they love to sketch new ideas for drum kit setups. So we developed an exciting, brand-focused configuration tool for drummers to create drum kit layouts using the huge inventory of Zildjian cymbals. The Zildjian Sound Lab’s Cymbal Set-up Builder puts into practice that when an online visitor can envision using a product, they’re one step closer to converting and making a purchase.
Overall traffic on the Zildjian site: up 47%, with the majority of that increase occurring in the Sound Lab
Sound Lab bounce rates: less than 20%
Average user time: more than four minutes
