Case study · Agency years
Wacom
A product site you experience before you buy.
Wacom was known to creative professionals the world over and had just expanded into tools for everyday users. Fi rebuilt wacom.com from the ground up as a digital showroom that inspires first and guides second. Chris Rubin served as writer, editor and producer of the case study, embedded with the team.
- Client
- Wacom
- Sector
- Creative technology, input devices
- Work
- Full redesign of wacom.com: a discovery page in place of a home page, a humanised product finder, layered navigation, the #MadeWithWacom community
- Role
- Writer, editor and producer, Fantasy Interactive
The brief
Wacom's existing base was serious creative professionals. Its new product lines were for the general public. One global experience had to engage first-timers without neglecting the professionals who were the bulk of its users, and present several multi-faceted product lines to the audience each was made for.
What we built
Product sites fall into three categories: utilitarian (Amazon, shelves and peer reviews), storytelling (Apple, the beauty of the object) and lifestyle (Bang & Olufsen, the product as status). Fi proposed a fourth. Call it the experiential site: let the user feel what it's like to own and use the product, with the site guiding them toward the right one through a new, humanised product finder.
The home page became a discovery page, a dynamic starting point that flexes toward whichever kind of user arrives. Navigation worked like a friendly usher, there when needed: sticky items, jump navigation and a layered information architecture for exploring each product line at any depth. #MadeWithWacom stitched the existing fan base into the site as a living stream of what people were making.
I was embedded behind the scenes at Fi for this one, and wrote, edited and produced the case study.
The case study, as published.
Fi's case-study page, in slices: the product lines, the discovery page, navigation, a product page, Cintiq and Pro Pen, the community, and the team in Tokyo.
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What changed
A new wacom.com, and a new answer to an old question: is the home page still relevant? For a brand whose products exist to make things, the answer was a place to discover rather than a place to land.
Is your best story still living in one head?
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