Comments on: Avoiding the R word

By: David

David — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:17:30 +0000

This was a good read especially how im going through some rather heavy ‘re-thinks’ for some websites.

It’s very true about the homepage, but you have to consider it may be the single most important page on the site as the majority of your traffic will enter your site from there. But yes, don’t waste too much time on the minute details of the homepage. Often times, they get changed anyway.

By: James Page

James Page — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:38:16 +0000

You should read through Sabrina Mach post on Designers Dilema: visual convention vs. breaking new ground, and replace visual convention with keeping the old design!

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:26:24 +0000

Hi Chris, thanks for commenting. I’m glad you were able to see such an increase in sales. But where do you think that 30% came from?

You see, the way you look at it is that your new site realised a 30% increase in sales. The way I see it, your old site was costing you up to 30% in sales for up to 3 years while you did nothing about it.

By: Chris St Cartmail

Chris St Cartmail — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:59:26 +0000

I see your point, but I totally disagree and fear you are lost in semantics.

What’s wrong with a ‘redesign’ if the site needs it?

We worked for 2 months on a redesign because after 3 years, we’d noted all the niggles, and ideas for improvement and thought it best to put it together in a holistic endeavour, rather than add a bit here, a bit there. Of course, along the way, essential tweaks were made.

The result: an immediate 30% surge in response and sales.

The online world moves so fast, every now and again a redesign is just essential.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:03:44 +0000

Thanks David, it was remembering a conversation with you that gave me the idea to write this post in the first place.

By: David Carruthers

David Carruthers — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:00:35 +0000

Totally agree about homepages, I made a point when I worked agency side, to ensure that we worked fully through all the product/category/etc pages before getting to the homepage. Designers had to be convinced, but I think it made for better designs.
I actually think it’s worth thinking about as a separate project/stream within a design so you can keep it out/separate.

We went through a redesign last year (We had to for various branding & technology reasons) and it was painful with all of the pitfalls you point out.

By: Penina

Penina — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:29:54 +0000

Thanks for pointing me to this post, David. It will take some energy to point the stakeholders in this direction, so each additional point of view on iterative site development helps me speak more persuasively.

By: Andrew Burnett

Andrew Burnett — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:45:33 +0000

Very well put David, bravo!

“Redesigns are too high profile” – never a truer word said. With so many non-designers angling for action it’s doomed, I’ve seen the same happen with coders and writers too. Combined with the deadline problems it’s a catastrophe in the brewing and nobody is happy with the results.

Ross, the Pareto principle fits so well it could have been inspired by 80% of all websites

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:42:25 +0000

Thanks Ross. This exactly my point. Focus on improving the things you know to be wrong rather than scrapping the whole site.

Even a complete redesign can be done in phases without actually calling it a redesign.

By: Ross Mooney

Ross Mooney — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:42:31 +0000

I’m beginning to see your point David. We’re going through this pain right now.

The pareto principle implies that we can improve 80% of our site’s value by focussingon 20% of it.