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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#331

Post by alexalx666 »

KronisLV wrote: post #185
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

old design is easier to process. not sure if its just me but seems like the new design wants to tell me what's important and I have to fight it spending precious brain cycles

Re: I regret my website redesign

#332

Post by jaclaz »

mtlynch wrote: post #3

Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.

First thing, thanks for your post, it has been really interesting.

I would like to ask how you made the correlation between the new site and the increase of sales, I believe that your product is a very good one and would have expected that your intended target, if anything, is less sensible to site design[0]:

>But despite all the missteps and stress, the results might justify all the pain. I expected the new website to increase sales by 10-20%, but it’s been closer to 40%. In July, the TinyPilot website hit an all-time high of $72.5k in sales, 66% higher than before the redesign.

[0] I mean it is not like you are selling fashion accesories, if someone wants/needs a Tinypilot they actually want/need a Tinypilot, and they shouldn't be sensible to the looks of the site (and BTW they would probably also want to see a picture of the HDMI/VGA adapter)

Re: I regret my website redesign

#333

Post by ncallaway »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #142
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.

I'm on a T&M contract right now where we are having the stupidest of disputes. T&M with a SOW full of deliverables. Client asks us to do a ton of work outside of scope. We inform the client it's out of scope, but that we are happy to perform the work as part of the T&M. Can't get anyone to push through a CR "because it's T&M so it doesn't matter." Client has been paying all along. Getting to the end, client doesn't w…

My favorite protection for this kind of situation is having a Single Point of Contact clause, that basically says: "ultimately, we take direction from X person and only X person".

This helps in a couple of different ways. Occasionally, you'll get conflicting requests or instructions from a client. When that happens, I usually just push it to the single point of contact and ask how they want to proceed.

But it also helps in the scenario you outlined, because I make sure any approvals for "outside the scope of SOW work" gets approved to be worked by the single point of contact, along with any relevant disclaimers about total project budget and estimate.

Then, when you come to time to evaluate the project progress the single point of contact has clear language that they've approved with whatever associated cost warnings.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#334

Post by winternett »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #29

I have seen many outsourcing projects with my coachees and with founders, I've managed my own and cancelled several when I was called in to fix them. The key to this kind of work is to understand: The agency is not your buddy, they have very different goals than you have. Too often do I seen people who have nice chats with the agency over a coffee. They are not your friends. You need to write the contract to align th…

With how templates, design, and code work on the Internet now looking at a portfolio does little to reassure people of capability.

I run a web design company myself, and the best customers to work with are ones that are decisive rather than needing to be sold an idea for design. Also great are customers that realize that design can be changed later or that precedent in functionality, message, and content rank foremost above site design.

With any web dev project it's best to plan what can be done in short phases rather than in huge project launches. We learned from the chaos in Healthcare.Gov (not our project of course) that huge product launches overwhelm teams, face huge delays, and also can result in chaotic deployments.

Great leaders that are decisive, studious, considerate, accountable, and calculatedly adventurous are the best customers and I enjoy working with them, also written agreements/contracts are essential to being on time and on budget.

In "WebAgency's" defense though, their illustrations do better depict the use of your product, despite perhaps the images not being very flattering.

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome on our end as a web design company is marketing, as compared to other companies (larger agencies that do web design). They spend a lot on marketing, and thus that is what makes them even more expensive to hire. These large companies also retain developers and split them across projects, so accountability and focus are at times not as good as what a dedicated development team and project manager could provide.

The #1 tell for the risk involved in dealing with a design project is the complexity of the proposed solution. It doesn't not seem that this project was meant to be that complex.... I was shocked by the $45k price tag. It's at least a good thing that I guess the company looks quite profitable.

I might be charging my customers way too little on the other hand though... :P

Re: I regret my website redesign

#336

Post by jrumbut »

mtlynch wrote: post #44
KingOfCoders wrote: post #29

I have seen many outsourcing projects with my coachees and with founders, I've managed my own and cancelled several when I was called in to fix them. The key to this kind of work is to understand: The agency is not your buddy, they have very different goals than you have. Too often do I seen people who have nice chats with the agency over a coffee. They are not your friends. You need to write the contract to align th…

Thanks for reading! I have a different philosophy when it comes to hiring in that I assume the people working with me are honest and they're motivated to do their jobs well. I'm paying for their time, and I assume they'll use their time effectively. If they can't use their time effectively, I terminate the hire, but I don't try to fix it with different policies. I agree that there are payment schemes that will cause…

I agree with you. I have written plenty of contracts and statements of work, and it's so important to get those right and make sure there's a true meeting of the minds and that they strike the right prject-specific balance between detail and flexibility, but there's no substitute for both sides being a little bit reasonable.

It's just not a business where a project can succeed despite an adversarial partner. Both sides need to grow together.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#337

Post by killion »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #291
killion wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why I was hoping the article would have the conversion rate of the website before and after the redesign.

There is a graph at the bottom that shows the conversion before and after the redesign.

Thanks! Sorry I had missed that.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#338

Post by yamazakiwi »

KronisLV wrote: post #185
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would argue that the most important factor when considering old reddit vs new reddit UI/UX isn't a matter of preference based upon performance, certain content, or habit. Old.reddit is actually just better for the end user experience overall and new reddit UI is better for Reddit's ad revenue.

Many times a user not wanting to switch to a new UI isn't based completely in effort/adaptability but a history of experience with product life-cycles weighing more towards business objectives over time. e.g. Facebook calls users lazy for not trying out "improvements" and blame old soccer moms for being inflexible when they're just trying to extract more money. Not that businesses spending effort to get more money doesn't make sense, because it does, but businesses love to lie about this common user complaint.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#339

Post by serd »

The new design is right in a lot of ways but I cannot stop thinking how honest and friendly the old design looks. I would also prefer the old, cute and more unique logo instead of the trendy plane icon.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#340

Post by tootie »

gusbremm wrote: post #255
tootie wrote: post #57

Man, you get what you pay for. If you actually want a thoughtful design based on user needs and strategic goals with an actual rise in conversion rates, $46k is not even close. I've never seen it done for less than $200k. Agencies I worked for in the past wouldn't pick up the phone for less than $500k and we had clients tripping over themselves to hire us. That being said, we did take on smaller clients from time to…

And that big, fancy agency will outsource the whole project for 1/20 of the paying price to a small company.

No we did it almost all in-house. It's a pretty competitive space, there's like 20 A-list agencies that operate at that level and 100 others a notch or two below. We frequently ended up working on site with clients, we couldn't hide anything.
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