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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#621

Post by doctor_eval »

abakker wrote: post #615
doctor_eval wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile and scrum are in practice such nebulous terms that while I don’t doubt that you have had good experience with the particular version of these concepts that you yourself use, the agency could well consider itself to be using the same concepts - yet here we are. The older I get, the more I come to understand that the problem with projects is people, not methodology. 30% of IT projects still fail, despite “agile”…

only 30%? I'd have guessed that most IT projects at least fail to achieve goals if they don't crater completely. the bigger the projects, the more they resemble interplanetary collisions.

Well, that’s according to the PMI. Finding the link will simply lower my level of happiness for the day, but you should be able to Google it (sorry).

The thing is that as far as I can tell, “success” is measured post-hoc, so all sorts of shenanigans might have taken place in order to determine that a project was “successful”. Having worked with my fair share of corporate project leaders, I’m quite certain that the actual number of failed projects would be much higher if measured by the original criteria used to justify the project in the first place.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#622

Post by montag »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #609

Serif -> Cliche San Serif, CHECK! Quirky Original Graphics -> Corporate Memphis, CHECK! Distinctive Colours -> Generic Shades of #0000FF, CHECK! Crisp Headline -> Something Generic, CHECK! Sharp image of distinctive looking device, makes you curious, looks like a unit! -> Generic Graphics, CHECK! And more... They ruined it! What a shame it was so good, so perfect before. The redeeming thing about the new design, if a…

I have to disagree with you. The site went from a basement project look-and-feel to something much more slick and credible. I'm with you right up until the point where people are paying for TinyPilot out of the business account; then the brand credibility really matters.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#623

Post by aetherspawn »

TheCapn wrote: post #386
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 ne…

As the owner of a control software company, your explanation about big companies bringing things in-house matches our experiences perfectly, and instead of assuming that they will never be able to bring things in-house due to the niche and a lack of experience, it has inspired me to put some more thought into how to solve this problem as we grow by focusing on having teams dedicated to dealing with and keeping our smaller recurring clients (i.e. have A and B teams as suggested).

Re: I regret my website redesign

#624

Post by Rastonbury »

napbree wrote: post #261

Digital Agency Owner Here... I have to say, this is difficult to read and it gives a bad name to other agencies. - I think the first "mistake" was not having it as a fixed price. We spend a lot of time up-front defining the scope and get sign off before committing to the work. After that, we roll it through the relevant departments. We take the risk on for bugs/issues (that are within scope) and do the project as a f…

Fixed price upon scoped deliverables is the way for such a small project, when using new freelancers always use fixed to trial how they are, then possibly move on to hourly. On those freelancing websites you can cap hours so they don't overbill for out of scope stuff, this is a rough experience but not that uncommon especially for first time.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#625

Post by quickthrower2 »

montag wrote: post #622
quickthrower2 wrote: post #609

Serif -> Cliche San Serif, CHECK! Quirky Original Graphics -> Corporate Memphis, CHECK! Distinctive Colours -> Generic Shades of #0000FF, CHECK! Crisp Headline -> Something Generic, CHECK! Sharp image of distinctive looking device, makes you curious, looks like a unit! -> Generic Graphics, CHECK! And more... They ruined it! What a shame it was so good, so perfect before. The redeeming thing about the new design, if a…

I have to disagree with you. The site went from a basement project look-and-feel to something much more slick and credible. I'm with you right up until the point where people are paying for TinyPilot out of the business account; then the brand credibility really matters.

Touche! Probably why slack went from edgy logo to looking like an Atlassian product line. Didn’t get fired for choosing X. I might be wrong then in that light. But I would personally have been more drawn in by the OG design.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#626

Post by solardev »

prawn wrote: post #605
solardev wrote: post #38

It's odd that you didn't want to name the agency. They ripped you off =/ No two ways about it. > I genuinely believe that WebAgency tried their best on this project. I don’t feel like they meant to deceive me or squeeze money out of me. We just didn’t match. I was used to working with individual freelancers, and WebAgency was accustomed to larger clients. ...I think that is a very forgiving, but utterly self-doormatt…

They're meant to be serving him. Instead, he was serving them, propping up their sizeable enterprise at the expense of his own (solo with meagre profits ~$20k/y). The boost in sales since could've been achieved with a modest revamp or be entirely unrelated. I don't think anyone at his scale should be paying $175/hr for custom illustrations especially when they look like the placeholder illustrations used in every sta…

1000% agree. A lot of web dev is insanely overpriced. Find a good cheap template and save tens of thousands. I guarantee you an agency will not be 100x better than for the 100x price difference. Web is one of those "make once, use often" industries that we don't really know how to price yet, but $175/hr is definitely not right.

Agencies aren't selling you superior talent. They're preying on your ignorance. Most of the best web stuff is free, made by people who are either passionate about their craft and want to give it away, or else have to prove the value of their labor because they were born in a poorer country and merit is all they have to prove themselves with. When you work with an agency, all it means is that you're too scared (or don't know how) to vet design and dev work accurately, so you're paying extra for the illusion of quality. Trust me, you're not going to get that. You're just ripping yourself off.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#628

Post by solardev »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #283
solardev wrote: post #38

It's odd that you didn't want to name the agency. They ripped you off =/ No two ways about it. > I genuinely believe that WebAgency tried their best on this project. I don’t feel like they meant to deceive me or squeeze money out of me. We just didn’t match. I was used to working with individual freelancers, and WebAgency was accustomed to larger clients. ...I think that is a very forgiving, but utterly self-doormatt…

> It's odd that you didn't want to name the agency. I've learned to keep things vague. I'm even careful about writing complimentary stuff; usually, if I have had a hand in it, I generally try to avoid directly naming. I am very careful about writing non-complimentary stuff; even if I have documented proof. In these cases, I may keep it to direct personal experience, and avoid directly naming the guilty parties. I've…

This is a very good point, sadly :( A lot of mediocre companies will abuse the legal system to cover up their ineptitude.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#629

Post by tehwebguy »

mtlynch wrote: post #441
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…

Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing! > All the variations of the logo and design mocks are clearly overkill for a $15k project. The design team had time to fill and wanted to provide lots of options for you to pick from, as they typically would on a larger project. Those variations are an expectation for $100k clients, and you got the $100k customer treatment, but unfortunately not at a discount. Oh, huh. I w…

It wasn’t scope creep it was a scam. Shady contractors in every industry pull stuff like this.

They didn’t deliver what you actually contracted for until you put your foot down because that was the hook — they couldn’t keep taking your money if they gave you what you wanted.

For anyone else reading this the best move would be to shut it down as soon as a single minute has been billed for out of contract work: “Hey this is not what I contracted & I won't be paying for any out of scope work.”

Re: I regret my website redesign

#630

Post by raegis »

napbree wrote: post #541
gxs wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe he should have named the agency. Obviously you never want that to happen to your own agency and would like to think any responsible CEO / owner wouldn’t allow these situations to happen (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate mistakes do occur - but this smells very different), so unless they suffer some consequence, they’ll do it to the next unsuspecting client and keep doing so.

> I believe he should have named the agency.

I disagree. (1) There is evidence that his company may profit from the redesign, and (2) he risks being sued for even the slightest mischaracterization in his blog, which requires tens of thousands to defend (at least). I don't see the point in risking the family business over this. Both parties learned a lesson. Perhaps the WebAgency will decide never to have hourly clients again.

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