Native Instruments

Levelling productivity by redesigning a desktop client around how users actually work

Company Native Instruments

Role Product Design
UX Research

Stakeholders PO & Scrum Master
Customer Insights
Developers & QA
Designers

Duration 8 months

Link Native Access 2

About

Native Instruments is a global leader in music and sound design hardware plus software technologies used by entities like Deadmau5, P!nk, Alicia Keys, Hans Zimmer, and many others.

Challenge

The physical and digital product ecosystem operates via Native Access, a desktop application used by more than 1.5 million customers to install, activate, update, and manage Native Instruments products.

Originally designed as a simple installer, Native Access gradually evolved into a comprehensive product management application without changing its user experience.

As customers expanded their audio plugin libraries, the application became difficult to navigate. Managing hundreds of plugins, virtual instruments, and sound libraries introduced friction throughout the experience, while growing technical complexity increased support costs and maintenance overhead. Users frequently struggled with:

Finding products within large, growing libraries

Understanding installation dependencies between plugins

Managing disk storage across local and external drives

Tracking installation progress and system status

					The complexity didn’t just frustrate users. It drove up support costs and maintenance overhead across the business.			

Solution

I led the redesign of Native Access into a modern product management experience, one enabling musicians and producers to efficiently organise, install, and maintain large collections of creative software. Rather than a disruptive overhaul, the approach focused on simplifying complex workflows while preserving the familiar interaction patterns that 1.5 million existing customers already relied on. The redesigned platform introduced:

Advanced filtering and navigation

Improved product organisation

Installation dependency awareness

Enhanced system status and error visibility

Storage management tools, including the ability to relocate installed content across drives

A refreshed interface aligned with Native Instruments' updated brand identity

The result was a scalable platform capable of supporting both new users finding their footing and professionals managing extensive software libraries.

Impact

1 %

Reduction in support tickets

1 %

Revenue increase

1 %

Growth in monthly active users

1 %

Reduction in average setup time

Positive feedback from customers, media and content creators (YouTube)

My Role

					I owned the end-to-end redesign of Native Access in collaboration with key stakeholders. The scope extended beyond a single team to 4 additional product teams whose products are tied to Native Access. Thus, design decisions had downstream consequences across the broader Native Instruments ecosystem.    Embedded within a cross-functional product squad, my responsibilities included:			

UX strategy & discovery

Stakeholder management

Market & user research

Information architecture

Design & prototyping

User validation

Presenting stakeholders with actionable insights

Discovery
Exploration
Design
Showcase
Validation

Establishing context and understanding

Working across my product team with a few designers from other product teams, I kickstarted this task by defining business objectives and establishing a roadmap. Next, I reviewed data comprising support feedback, analytics, and past research to obtain a clear picture of the general issues.

Moving forward, I ran a competitive analysis for a clear picture of where competitors perform better, followed by interviews with 15 customers to learn from their experience utilizing the product and where we can improve. Four key outcomes emerged:

Browsing and discoverability became problematic as the item catalog within the desktop client grew exponentially

Installation dependencies between plugins were invisible, leading to installation issues and avoidable support requests

Storage management was an afterthought, leaving users with no means to manage music plugins across storage devices

Direct and indirect competing solutions delivered a world-class UX.

					Together, these findings reframed the project from improving an installer to designing a platform for managing an expanding creative ecosystem.			

Exploring solutions grounded in evidence

With over 1.5 million existing users, the central challenge was balancing innovation with familiarity. A radical redesign could disrupt workflows users already relied on, so I emphasized retaining most of the product’s existing structure and touchpoints to protect users’ mental models and avoid steepening the learning curve.

Through participatory design sessions with 5 music students, I progressively narrowed down a scalable product concept that was meaningful to users.

Moving forward, the final UI designs addressed key core problems including navigation redesign, inclusion of filtering (e.g. sort by instrument, vendor, etc.) to streamline discoverability, clear status messages surrounding errors and dependencies, and a novel feature I proposed, enabling users to relocate existing music productivity installations between hard drives while preserving internal system linking structure.

Every idea was validated against both usability and technical feasibility.

Designing around how users actually work

The redesigned Native Access desktop client transforms content and library management into a faster, intuitive experience for artists and sound designers at every level. Customers can discover products, manage installations, understand plugin dependencies, and relocate content libraries, all through capabilities designed around how users actually work.

The result is a desktop client tailored for both novice and power users owning hundreds of music assets within the same utility.

Before Redesign

After Redesign

‹ ›

Showcase

In the video below, a user compared the old and new Native Access. The user shares his hurdles navigating 200 assets and his delight at the inclusion of ‘filters’ within the software. Watch full video

Positive reception from users post validation

					Lastly, I validated the new Native Access via moderated usability tests and surveys with 12 existing users.  Study participants consistently responded well to the redesigned experience, highlighting improved navigation, clearer product organisation, simplified storage management, and better visibility of installation dependencies.  Preserving familiar interaction patterns while modernising the overall experience successfully reduced friction without compromising existing user mental models.			