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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#631

Post by LtWorf »

makeitdouble wrote: post #596
Joker_vD wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. If I didn't like Windows UX, I'd switch to something else on my own, thank you very much.

Don't you wish there was a vibrant ecosystem of commercial OSes, each providing a different choice regarding the UX or other aspect you want to prioritize, each being financially viable based on their merits and not getting crushed by a monopolistic gorilla ? You'd have options to go to when Microsoft makes choices you don't agree with. I sure wish we were in that world.

Google has decided that the clock on my phone must be HH\nMM and there is nothing I can do about it :(

Re: I regret my website redesign

#632

Post by p0larboy »

Plenty of comments calling out the design as "worse".

Bottomline: "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%."

Re: I regret my website redesign

#633

Post by eCa »

JohnAaronNelson wrote: post #590
atourgates wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been at a small agency that's grown into a midsize agency over the last decade+. Everything about this story rings true, and the author's conclusions are absolutely on point. Now our agency is at a place where we can say no to work like this, both because we have a solid client base that supports us financially without projects like this, and because we've learned that no matter how good our intentions, neither…

FTA sales increased 66%

Yes. But what we don’t know is

1) How would the old design perform during that time period

2) How would a hypothetical $7k design perform during that time period

#1 is of course why a/b-testing was invented, while #2 is even more speculative. But we don’t know how much of the 66% can be attributed to the new design.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#634

Post by dcj4 »

I have never seen or heard of a "web agency" doing anything for a reasonable amount of money or in a reasonable timeframe. The whole business idea behind a web agency seems to be scamming customers out of the maximum possible amount of money. I would never even consider hiring one. For something like this you hire a solo freelancer. Fraction of the money, done way quicker, and you don't end up paying the gigantic overhead of the agency.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#635

Post by Beldin »

romanows wrote: post #537
eddd-ddde wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes a lot of sense, I feel like this is more of a management issue, it should be the responsibility of the manager to keep everyone working on what is initially planned.

They kind of addressed this by saying that they try to keep management billing hours quite low. Perhaps this low percentage would have been "enough" had the size of the project been bigger? Although, I think it'd be fair to argue that the designers should have been "trained" (i.e., with time not billed as "management" for a client's project) to stick to the project scope a bit better. I get it though: my only experie…

The agency would normally allocate 5% of the budget to management, but Isaac made the decision (since the budget was so small) to completely eliminate that. The budget ballooned to 6x its planned size and the management allocation was the same percentage of that as of the original budget: 0%.

Rather ironic, since that latter budget probably is sufficiently large not to eliminate management completely. (~$350 vs ~$2000 for mgmt)

Re: I regret my website redesign

#636

Post by lmm »

zebraflask wrote: post #193
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…

A tale as old as (Internet) time - I've seen this cycle happen, too. Tangentially, I have to wonder to what extent misapplication of Agile, and similar, project management processes is to blame. You'd think for most relatively simple sites, like we're talking about here, it ought to be planned once and built once, but something about the mindset that the goal posts can be moved during planning and development seems t…

I think that's pretty backwards. Non-agile is how you get these things being rebuilt every other year because by the time it's built the requirements that were originally gathered are obsolete.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#637

Post by LtWorf »

blt wrote: post #500
rurp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also now has a bug where sometimes unless I reboot the phone it will refuse to show more than 4 of those bluetooth/wifi buttons…

The other day I had to cross a little tunnel and I couldn't put on the light on the phone until I rebooted it -_-'

Re: I regret my website redesign

#638

Post by LtWorf »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27
MaxPengwing wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple gets a lot of flack for keeping design constant over the years, but this is the reason why they do it. People hate changes to their workflow.

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.

mc donald in italy has espresso and croissants

Re: I regret my website redesign

#639

Post by lelanthran »

doctor_eval wrote: post #560
ratww wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I still like Agile and Scrum, as much as other devs might hate it. “Yeah I want REAL deliverables after the first or second week”. Keeps me honest. And will keep me from working with architecture astronauts don’t really deliver anything but hot air and build ultra-extensible structures that are actually impossible to extend beyond the fantasy world of their maker. Or the equivalent for designers.

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”…

> 30% of IT projects still fail, despite “agile” now being widespread.

That's a very optimistic statistic, unless "fail" is defined to be something other than "the opposite of success".

IOW, a fail is any project that goes over time, over budget or delivers under scope.

If you're defining success as "well, we delivered eventually, and we delivered 80% of the requirements, and it only went over budget by 20%", then, sure, only 30% of IT projects "fail".

Re: I regret my website redesign

#640

Post by gervwyk »

raegis wrote: post #630
napbree wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 clien…

How would this be different from a review? and could one be sued for posting a opinionated review?

I guess the title intro and conclusion should be changed as a review..

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