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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#381

Post by easrng »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #40

I can't remember seeing a website redesign in my entire life that didn't make the site worse. Many sites have gone down the tubes due to redesigns while always blaming the failure on something else. Kudos for at least having the self-awareness to realize that your redesign didn't help. To first order, there's (usually) only one site metric that really matters, and that's page load speed. Craigslist still thrives desp…

I wouldn't call Craigslist "thriving", it's still alive but it seems like Facebook Marketplace took over a lot of what it did.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#382

Post by deaddodo »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #338
KronisLV wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 experien…

The fact that new reddit defaults to showing only a few comments on the post, followed by recommending 20 other unrelated posts, just shows how badly aligned that design is with their goals.

Reddit is a glorified web forum. Period. Making comments hidden and difficult to browse basically negates 50% of it's function (the other being media + content discoverability).

Re: I regret my website redesign

#383

Post by bequanna »

WorldMaker wrote: post #373
latortuga wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was ready to fire the agency the moment the author mentioned they were going off script and building whatever they wanted. This was a huge, blinking red flag for me. Why would you keep paying someone when they're doing work you didn't ask for, doing work that doesn't align with your goals, and ignoring what you say?

That seems to be the point where sunk cost fallacy strikes hard in the post to me. They had paid $X for "80% of the first milestone of work" and that sunk cost locks them in to everything else that happens. They seemed too fearful from that point onward that if they fired the agency and brought in a new agency or freelancer that they would start from square 1 and do all of the previous work (and spend) over again. Th…

Which absolutely makes me think this was a well thought out con designed to prey on those types of fears and maximize the value extracted from the mark.

Those lottery phone scams out of Jamaica which target the elderly in the US are almost the exact same scam as what was described here.

Promise something, get them to send money, don’t deliver, tell them you need more time/more money. Keep repeating until the mark walks away.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#384

Post by Invictus0 »

donatj wrote: post #223
raunak wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I got both of these on Fiverr for about $25 each - I'm very happy with both. - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/donatj/StandardOtter/dd3f2... - https://noteof.app/logo.svg

The noteof logo doesn't look like it would scale to small size very well. The gap between the top left corner of the N and the other elements seems too small.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#385

Post by ElemenoPicuares »

shepardrtc wrote: post #231
mtlynch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The only goal of a company that has billable hours is to rack up billable hours. If that involves building an amazing piece of work, then that's fine. But if it can be done by blowing off the client and feeding them bullshit, then that's fine too. I watched consulting companies bilk literally millions of dollars out of a household name company by simply lying to people that didn't know any better. I really respect yo…

I actually had a big long response to your approach pointing out how damaging of a mindset that is for design projects, but I think this is more relevant.

I worked as a nightclub bouncer for well over a decade. I learned that you can gauge how confident a bouncer is by how friendly and warm they are to people they might have to fight later that night, and by how calmly they respond to people challenging them, physically or otherwise. If you're genuinely confident you can handle the odd bad actor appropriately once they reveal themselves, you don't need to assume every interaction is a potential battle, and everybody benefits. It creates goodwill and encourages understanding when mitigating your own inevitable inadvertent transgressions.

I learned that people who openly talk about their toughness are, without exception, trying to convince themselves more than anyone else. They can't help trying to turn every potential confrontation into supporting evidence for their argument. These people can't help trying to proactively win situations that aren't competitive and unlikely to ever be dangerous. Not only does that causes a lot of collateral damage, but the combative attitude is much better at creating self-fulfilling prophecies than discouraging bad behavior. However, without exception, they believe they're responding rationally to the dangers of the world. It's an exhausting, often self-defeating, anxiety-inducing way to live.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#386

Post by TheCapn »

level wrote: post #172

I recently left a boutique agency of 5 years and I can definitely resonate with this one. Our agency aimed to catch big fish, and we did, but since they are hard to land we'd pick up small jobs in the meantime, just like the project that you're describing here. In my perspective, this isn't someone deliberately ripping you off. I imagine they intended to ship at the cost they quoted, but the team didn't adjust their…

>The reality is, small jobs like this are effectively make-work projects for an agency. They typically don't pay enough to be an effective use of time for the agency, but are a way to stay in the black between higher value projects. Small customers become "nuisance" customers as soon as a something better is landed. The team members being swapped out as they are needed elsewhere and newly joining team members then need to re-contextualize and regain momentum, all on your dime.

Man. That 3rd paragraph resonates so well with me/my employer. We're an industrial automation company. Family owned. Started from the owner's shed and grew to what we are now. We were built on smalltime clients and our product quality got around through word of mouth and are now at the point where we have massive multi-million dollar clients.

We still support the little guys though. And we get more little guys under our umbrella every year. I think there's still a part of our company that recognizes we have roots in helping the farmers automated their cleaner processes. We also have the nearly identical issue that our OP is bitching about: we're married to these massive clients and we fill the gaps with the little projects. But when the timing is getting tight, the little guys are who loses out.

I'm starting to see the cracks. Clients who built our foundations are losing out on support and growth opportunities. We're more concerned with the next mining project or new facility build than we are selling small guys upgrades and ongoing modernization. It's fine as far as the pocketbook goes but I feel like we play a dangerous game allowing our work schedules to be dictated by the big guys. Eventually they all grow to realize the same thing: the controls part is crucial enough to the business that it needs to be brought in house. Once that happens our value falls off quickly. It's only bad because we're losing our core for the opportunity to play puppet to some truly massive clients.

I feel like I'm getting a bit lost in the weeds, but really my point is just how I haven't really thought clearly about what the perception of our business must be to the clients, both big and small. We play a critical service role among many industries but we also run the risk of alienating the business that's virtually guaranteed to be there in hopes of marrying ourselves to somebody who only needs us now, and probably not tomorrow.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#387

Post by lostlogin »

beckingz wrote: post #224
bowsamic wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you are very lucky if you've never had really bad fries. I've been to places and had undercooked fries, burnt fries, fries with almost no potato in them, soggy fries. McDonald's fries are very okay but they are always okay. They are very rarely hot though, usually quite old, but at least not stone cold like KFC fries (in the UK and Europe we have fries instead of mash with fried chicken). The fries in Belgium ar…

I've eaten some potato based food crimes in my day. Agreed that Belgium has consistently good fries everywhere. Consistently mediocre (3/5, thoroughly passable) is the value prop of fast food.

What they do in the UK is horrifying. The soggy oily mass that you eat with a prong thing.

I even went to the current winner of ‘best fish and chips’ that year, in Whitby. Argh.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#388

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

mtlynch wrote: post #315
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be blunt but you got scammed. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I feel like you're approaching this the wrong way if your first reaction was to schedule a call with the scammer and amicably discuss where things went wrong. My first instinct, would be to amicably discuss reimbursement of at least parts of the bill, which in my experience an honest agency would consider especially when they outright admit (hop…

Thanks for reading! > I hate to be blunt but you got scammed. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I feel like you're approaching this the wrong way if your first reaction was to schedule a call with the scammer and amicably discuss where things went wrong. Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or if it's just easier for me to empathize with the agency having worked with them face-to-face, but I sti…

With regards to the difference between branding and web-design, it's fairly clear cut in my eyes. They should have been the ones guiding you and helping you understand that boundary as design professionals. Defining your brand identity and guidelines should have been their first priority, given what you asked of them, long before any development work.

I'm no expert myself, so take it with a grain of salt but I've been learning a lot about branding for my own company[0]. It's pretty much the same process everywhere, if you're interested in learning more and seeing how a project typically goes I'd recommend watching The Futur's "Building a Brand" on youtube[1], it's a great series and gives a good bird's eye view of the process. (It depicts a large project, but from what I've seen small projects follow the same process with less polish and back-and-forth.)

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32064809 [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxgOY2Ms-YI

Re: I regret my website redesign

#389

Post by Vanderson »

mtlynch wrote: post #321
Vanderson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said you'd next time go with a freelancer as one of your solutions. I'd argue you can run into the exact same problems as you described in your main post, just on a smaller scale. In this comment: > There were still issues, but I was prepared this time. WebAgency kept suggesting new flourishes to the design. I declined them all and told them to focus on the design I’d approved. I’m glad I did because they’d proba…

Thanks for reading! > You said you'd next time go with a freelancer as one of your solutions. I'd argue you can run into the exact same problems as you described in your main post, just on a smaller scale. Yes, definitely. In my experience, the smaller scale makes it easy to manage, so you can nip problems in the bud more quickly. >> There were still issues, but I was prepared this time. WebAgency kept suggesting new…

To be clear, I agree with your assessment and I would not recommend an agency unless you are a huge company as well. It's a mis-match of interests and goals.

The work I did as a web programmer for an agency (freelance) was similarly imbalanced with many "leaders" telling me what to do, (ie, project lead heavy, 1 designer, 1 programmer) and it was a mess and I won't bother with it again.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#390

Post by exikyut »

tillinghast wrote: post #295
philliphaydon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume so, Singapore for some reason HATES salt. They don't put salt on fries from mcdonalds, so you always end up with a bag of soggy fries. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/singapore-hear... Taiwan has burger king burgers with peanut butter on them... https://www.burgerking.com.tw/jps9805

Throw some sriracha on that BK PB burger and that would be _magnificent_.

*Adds "peanut butter and sriracha" to list of improbable combinations to investigate*
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