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1. What my corporate website needs is not less but MORE sketches of the Republican Party in a strap-on, pounding the ass of conservative voters.

   I’d like an RFP (Request for Penetration) delivered pronto.

   by Paul Ford June 5th, 2006 | 7:28 pm

2. that looks alot like my house at the moment… I’d never drawn a parallel between moving house and redesigning a website though… probably because I *hate* moving house so much!

   nice post chris :)

   by leisa.reichelt June 5th, 2006 | 11:35 pm

3. I simply HAD to post on this topic!

   We have another website http://www.easyvisausa.com - we do GC Lottery Facilitation (no need to go into the politics PLEASE) and we redesigned our site approx 10 times in 2 years. We added more languages, we changed the way the forms work, we added additional backend features, we added an automated photo upload etc. We changed a million things and each redesign cost us tons of cash, but we did it cause we thought it would add value to the end user.

   We did not however balance the cost of redesigning (each time) with the added value (and if we had done so I doubt we would have redesigned as often as we did).

   However, the main problem that crept up on us was the fact that with each redesign - we never deleted the old design from our server so we have 4-6 complete websites in different folders and a jumbled mess on our server - making it a complete nightmare to ftp anything.

   You can see our old designs at the wayback machine (for convenience here is the link): http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.easyvisausa.com

   Anyway, the point is twofold: 1. future websites will be designed correctly from the start (to avoid numerous add-ons and chaos) and 2. break even point should be reached before investing huge capital in a redesign. I guess you could call this learning the hard way.

   Sorry for the long post. :)

   Fancy

   by Fancy Nancy June 6th, 2006 | 10:52 am

4. Nancy: It’s easier to redesign a site when the content is separated from the design, which might avoid the multiple-site problem you have. But it adds the risk that more people will think that because the content is portable that it’s a good idea to just move the content from the old design to the new.

   by Christopher Fahey June 7th, 2006 | 11:19 am

5. This isn’t that tough, Nancy. The problem is your IA. Where is it??? Assess and Structure the content first, then do a rough POC. Move into building the site after. I thought this was standard, but apparently you need to outsource.

   by Shorty June 8th, 2006 | 1:20 pm

6. Shorty - I wish it was standard, but I’ve never worked for a client who saw the value in the two-tiered approach you describe. Everyone wants to get something new (or fresh) out there right away, and then flesh it out. As a web designer, I find that this reliably leaves me stuck somewhere down the line when they want something that clearly doesn’t fit properly into the whipped-together design they wanted in the first place. I try to talk them out of it, they decide this is what they really want despite my warnings, and I keep every e-mail I send so I’ll have proof later. It’s a delicate dance we do together.

   Content is SO much more important in a site than design (this comes from a designer, too!). Trying to teach clients not only about the potential future scope of their site, but how to think flexibly about that without making them feel boxed in is a real exercise in crowd management.

   I wish Nancy’s comments that in the future sites will be designed properly from the start brought me comfort. Unfortunately, I think as long as non-techs are making business decisions about the structure, design and content of the site (yeah, that’s a lot of switchbacks, I know) and techs are generally unable to communicate their thoughts in business speak, these misunderstandings will continue. It’s less about site design and more about simple communication between two VERY different groups of people with the same goal. It’s too bad, because I think a lot of people try very earnestly to communicate well with the other camp. But the language of one often uses a word for one thing that means a different thing to the other, and the comedy continues.

   by tkepler June 13th, 2006 | 8:29 pm

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