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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#491

Post by earljman »

As somebody who feels really guilty for letting a project go even 30% beyond an estimate, this was a comforting read for sure.

I build websites for small-scale clients, often who are just starting out. After a lot of hard lessons, I make sure to communicate as soon as I can even when it was just a “soft” deadline. I had a project go 40% over the estimate and had to charge the client for it to keep my bills paid (it mostly due to scope creep, managed poorly).

After reading this post, it feels like those lessons are especially worthwhile as the business world comes to realize the value in the boutique/freelance contractors. Also helps me get over the mistakes, which weren’t nearly as bad in comparison.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#492

Post by bequanna »

allenu wrote: post #414
bequanna wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wal…

Maybe "well thought out con" is a little strong here. I see it as more likely the consulting firm has learned this behavior over time and it has rewarded them well. I imagine that if they're normally dealing with large contracts, those companies footing the bill are probably easier to string along like this. Just do enough and promise enough that they keep you on and only budge when they get more serious about potent…

I don’t buy this was some mistake in good faith. I think the author is a little naive which made him a good mark.

They started work on and subsequently billed for something that was explicitly out of scope.

My guess is that the founder of the agency knew early on that he could push this client around to extract $.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#493

Post by gxs »

dcow wrote: post #437
gxs wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the agency owner, how would you have felt reading this if the author had named the agency? It really bugs me how people take a "protect the innocent" approach to these articles when in reality they should be saying loud and clear who the offender is.

I'm not sure I understand your comment? Who's the offender here?

The author of the article didn’t name the agency he was engaged with.

In other words, he essentially wrote a really long, detailed review but never mentioned the actual product.

My question to you was simply how would you take it if someone named you in an article like this.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#495

Post by sergiomattei »

javier2 wrote: post #453
ArchitectAnon wrote: post #405

$46k for those changes holy fucking shit. I’ve charged less than this to design a whole 200m² house. I built a detailed 3d model, secured all the permissions and technical approvals, produced 30 A1 drawings, written a 200 page spec, coordinated engineering, tendered to contractors negotiated the tender, visited the site every two weeks for two years to check they were building it correctly and signed off on thier inv…

Am I out of touch? I think about 30-40k does not sound unreasonable for something like this. You have a redesign, with UX people improving your shopping and cart page + implementation + updating your maze of weird bootstrap theme to the new redesign.

It sounds reasonable for a good redesign, but this is just terrible. Generic all the way.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#496

Post by mtlynch »

ricardobayes wrote: post #426

$175 an hour lol. I know senior designers/programmers who work for a fifth of that in Europe. Perfect English, 5+ yoe I never understood why companies pay hundreds per hour to anyone. You can get equivalent talent for much less, if you know where to look.

Where do you recommend looking?

Re: I regret my website redesign

#497

Post by mountain_peak »

mtlynch wrote: post #480
mountain_peak wrote: post #184

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 nos…

Thanks for reading! I'll take the blame for dropping the chipmunk. I wanted the logo to appeal more to businesses, and I felt like the chipmunk came across as too playful, so I told them not to bother preserving it. Your mock up looks pretty cool!

Ah - thanks for having a look and responding with a nice comment. I suspected what you wrote after I posted, since I have many people asking for the the next iconic "f" or "G" or Apple, and I usually tell them that the logo should instantly recognizable as your own (for whatever that's worth). Paul Rand's (I think I wrote Rand Paul above!) "Thoughts on Design" is a great short book where he says, "...[a design] is not good design if it does not co-operate as an instrument in the service of communication."

Above all, it's important that you love your new design (you mentioned that you do), which is great and positions you for growth in your target areas as opposed to "preaching to the converted," which is what I think you're implying with the chipmunk.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#498

Post by LadyCailin »

ArchitectAnon wrote: post #408
ArchitectAnon wrote: post #405

$46k for those changes holy fucking shit. I’ve charged less than this to design a whole 200m² house. I built a detailed 3d model, secured all the permissions and technical approvals, produced 30 A1 drawings, written a 200 page spec, coordinated engineering, tendered to contractors negotiated the tender, visited the site every two weeks for two years to check they were building it correctly and signed off on thier inv…

Also if I agreed to a fee of £7k and tried to charge a client £46k without agreeing a new scope of work with a new signed appointment contract I would probably be struck off and fined £20k by my professional regulator.

Haha, software development doesn’t have licensing. I got downvoted for suggesting it should, so it’s unlikely to have it in the future either, unless it becomes government regulated. Which would be its own disaster, and why I think industry licensing should be a thing.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#499

Post by thayne »

nerdawson wrote: post #440
bequanna wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wal…

Most of my career has been spent at agencies. I think you're attributing malice to what was more than likely routine mismanagement.

Perhaps, but there is an incentive to continue that mismanagement, rather than fixing it.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#500

Post by blt »

rurp wrote: post #345
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.

God, I wish this were printed on the wall of every software design office. Mediocre designs are fine if people know them, because they learn to work around the rough edges to the point where they often don't notice them. But a new design (probably also mediocre!) requires way more cognitive load. Tech as an industry is horrible on this front. Just to pick on one example: Android. Google absolutely loves changing the…

Android 12 was a complete disaster.
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