I regret my website redesign • Hacker News Board

Re: I regret my website redesign

#181

Post by whatinthef4747 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #140

bathtub365 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you rethinking your philosophy after wasting $46,000? > you get into disputes about what is or isn't in scope, This is to your advantage as the one who is able to withhold payment when delivery isn't up to your standards, and you are protected contractually. With pure time & materials it's much harder to sue for non-delivery unless you can prove they didn't work the hours they billed for.

> Are you rethinking your philosophy after wasting $46,000? Honestly, no. I think I certainly made mistakes on this project, but I don't think trusting devs to use their time effectively was the problem. >> you get into disputes about what is or isn't in scope, > This is to your advantage as the one who is able to withhold payment when delivery isn't up to your standards, and you are protected contractually. With pur…

No post body was provided.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#182

Post by spcebar » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #112

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People crave consistency. McDonald’s isn’t popular because it’s good, but because the burger you eat in Santa Monica is the same you’d get in Pigeon Forge, TN.

I don't know where Santa Monica and Pigeon Forge are. But traveling around Asia... McDonalds doesn't taste the same between Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand. Infact Thailand burgers are VERY salty...

I wonder if this is an intentional choice to adapt to the tastes of local markets?

Re: I regret my website redesign

#183

Post by richardkeller » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

I run an software / creative agency in South Africa (creationlabs.co.za) that works with clients ranging from tiny to large corporates. What I've found is that the direction of the blame very much depends on which side of the fence you're sitting. One the one hand the client blames the agency for being opportunistic, while at the same time the developers get frustrated at what may seem like a never-ending list of unreasonable expectations.

That's not to say that this is what happened here, but in both situations the problem comes down to a lack of effective communication.

The agency here should have communicated from the start how many hours they can reasonably expect to spend on each phase of the project with the given budget, and then provided continuous updates to allow Michael to understand how much time he had remaining to complete the project. Opaque processes, coupled with a lack of transparency and communication is how projects like this leave a sour taste, or worse, fail entirely.

On a personal note, I'm gobsmacked at both the hourly rates as well as the total project hours discussed in this article. A website like this should have taken a fraction of the time. And if outsourced to a professional team in another country, a fraction of the price too.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#184

Post by mountain_peak » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

Thanks for sharing your story; as a developer/designer (more developer than designer; love C, no love for JavaScript), I hear stories such as yours practically everyday.

What I really wanted to say is that I love your aviator gopher and the designer should have at least taken a shot at incorporating your gopher in the logo.

I mocked-up a negative space [almost] one-colour logo with a close-up of a stylized gopher nose and teeth wearing aviators on a CRT green background with a brighter green cursor reflecting in the glasses. That ties in your history for continuity, modern pilot with aviator glasses, a cursor for remote control, and the green background as a nod to the past.

Growing up on green and amber CRTs, I'm a huge sucker for retro designs, and try to incorporate Rand Paul's philosophy wherever I can, which captures the essence of a company in a clean and easily recognizable design.

Edit: here's just the gopher for the curious: https://imgur.com/a/OEk8IUL

Re: I regret my website redesign

#185

Post by KronisLV » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #96

SkyMarshal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers/users learn a bad design and get accustomed to it. Any changes, even ones that ostensibly improve it, add cognitive effort and contribute to their aggregate cognitive overload (taking into account everything else they have to learn and remember on a daily basis). The original design achieved “don’t make me think” , and any changes, even improvements, reset that.

This is why I hate all these websites that keep A/B testing. Just when I get used to a layout, they pull out a new design, completely disorienting me.

> Just when I get used to a layout, they pull out a new design, completely disorienting me.

Honestly, I feel like the only way of working around this is having multiple different interface options available.

For example, the new Reddit look is more app-like and certainly has improvements to the user profile pages and whatnot. Yet for certain types of browsing content, or wanting to do it without your browser slowing down as much, the old interface is still available:

  https://www.reddit.com/
  https://old.reddit.com/

Many out there will stop using the site the day when the old interface goes down and for now can just use the old one despite the new one being available - thus allowing them to stick to the user experience that they're used to.

Of course, not many out there want to deal with something like this on the development side, such as CRUD systems that would need to move fields around, add new business process steps etc. There, maintaining two separate versions would be a massive pain.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#186

Post by normalhappy » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

Wow. I closed my web services shop cuz I couldn;t find more work. My one client and I parted ways cuz I was too expensive ($100 an hour) to keep building their aws webapp to monitor patients weight and blood pressures (also they paid me about 8 months late).

Totally appreciate the post-mortem and lessons learned at the end and I hope there will be NO next time for you.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#187

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #61

I live through this every 2 years: - Marketing team decides they want a new site. - I tell them when/how we can schedule it. - They decide they want to go outside so it can get done "quicker" by "professionals." - It costs 5-10x what it would in house, the product is harder to work with, using some WordPress plugins no one has ever heard of, it's not responsive on mobile nor usable on our demographic's primary resolu…

> We are an early stage startup

It's no different at massive corporate behemoths.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#188

Post by raunak » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #93

Good God, that logo would be $50 on Fiverr, those illustrations would be $10 each, and that landing page would be 2 hours with bootstrap. This is how you turn $500 worth of work into $45,000 worth of billing.

I doubt you could get that level of quality illustrations/logo from Fiverr, but I could be wrong.

The actual page redesign, I agree - where would you recommend hiring a designer from if you don't actually know design, then?

Re: I regret my website redesign

#189

Post by 0898 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

I run a community for agencies (Agency Hackers).

I wonder if a flat fee would have been the way to go here? Was that something you looked at?

Also, this was an interesting post, and I would love to have you talk to our community about it sometime if you're up for it.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#190

Post by TrickyRick » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #96

SkyMarshal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers/users learn a bad design and get accustomed to it. Any changes, even ones that ostensibly improve it, add cognitive effort and contribute to their aggregate cognitive overload (taking into account everything else they have to learn and remember on a daily basis). The original design achieved “don’t make me think” , and any changes, even improvements, reset that.

This is why I hate all these websites that keep A/B testing. Just when I get used to a layout, they pull out a new design, completely disorienting me.

That's because more often than not you're not the target audience. Growth > retention in many cases, so it's more important to give a good first experience than a keeping a good continued experience.