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Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.
You got tricked. You got scammed. Whether it was through their excessive incompetence or their active malice. You should name and shame.
The new design looks like a random free template. It‘s ok, at best.
You are a victim here! Don‘t you see it?
Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.
Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.
I liked your original design. Simpler, to the point, and lower contrast so my eyes don't bleed. Also I am utterly floored at how long programming a web page takes even for these "professionals". Yet another profession that pays way better for way less work than mine (scientist).
Having a picture of the product was both endearing and reassuring. The new site could just be another rebrand for a reseller of cheap Chinese schlock.
This reminds me of when I worked for a B2C company in the healthcare space. We hired a freelance designer to redesign our checkout flow and we wanted it done in time for Black Friday, which was by far our biggest day of the year. Of course the project ran long and we crunched so that we could ship the redesign exactly on Black Friday. I think we shipped the Tuesday before (because Thanksgiving) and everything seemed…
Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.
I just want you to know: You're not alone. I worked at a company that had a similar experience with a highly regarded web design firm. Only difference is we did our own implementation from their designs. Working with them as an IC was even worse because they knew I wasn't the one signing their checks. Some anecdotes: * their new designs actually made our metrics WORSE. * Some of their design work didn't cleanly trans…
>Only difference is we did our own implementation from their designs. Working with them as an IC was even worse because they knew I wasn't the one signing their checks.
Oh, that makes me feel a little better about letting the agency take on the dev work instead of doing it in-house like I'd originally planned. I feared that there'd be a lot of miscommunication and confusion if my company's dev team had to resolve design issues with the external agency's designers. From your experience, it sounds like I was right to worry.
This reminds me of when I worked for a B2C company in the healthcare space. We hired a freelance designer to redesign our checkout flow and we wanted it done in time for Black Friday, which was by far our biggest day of the year. Of course the project ran long and we crunched so that we could ship the redesign exactly on Black Friday. I think we shipped the Tuesday before (because Thanksgiving) and everything seemed…
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.
Everytime I read those stories, and that happens from time to time, I just ask myself: what did I wrong?
(answer is easy: I'm a good technician but the worst salesman)
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 the incentives of the agency as much with yours as possible. For example: I see hourly billing, and bug fixing counting as billed hours. How has the agency an incentive to keep bugs low if it makes them more money? Agency has low retention, new people are slower, slower means more money for the agency. How has the agency an incentive to keep people on the project?
[Edit] You might think this is obvious, but I have seen unaligned incentives in mostly every outsourcing project I've looked into and was asked to fix. Tip: Do not take the developers they give you/have on the project. Interview all of them and reject the bad ones. As a new customer, they will not give you the best but those available (currently not on project/rejected by other clients)