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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#531

Post by protonbob »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #509
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.

I'd bet you a large sum of money this agency used Agile. Agile is not a guarantee of deliverables you care about. There is a lot of useless stuff you can deliver.

Well, if you are doing it correctly, you are supposed to make a sprint goal of a deliverable that has value.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#532

Post by bgdkbtv »

I've been on both ends of a scenario like this, as a client and also as the manager. Both situations suck, but they happen.

I actually really like the redesign, one thing I'd change is make the blue color a little less cold and a bit more inviting - but current one still works well.

However, the amount of money it cost is absolutely ridiculous.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#533

Post by ArchitectAnon »

wrycoder wrote: post #478
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…

What was that, five percent of the value of the house (land not included)? If so, seems reasonable.

More like 7%. But that’s for a completely custom design from scratch not just reprocessing an off the shelf design.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#535

Post by ghostly_s »

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…

If retaining the small clients is a business goal, you should have a (small) dedicated team devoted to them, that knows how to work in the way that these small clients need.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#537

Post by romanows »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #152
deltarholamda wrote: post #89

You know how, during a big programming project, you have to keep the devs from going "this codebase has a lot of technical debt, let's rebuild the whole thing using Rust and Kubernetes and Deno and move the hosting to Azure and switch databases and use microservices and..."? Designers are exactly the same way. Just as technical fiddling is fun and interesting, making new designs from scratch is just as fun and intere…

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 experience has been with internal, full-time employees, and I see is given a fair amount of latitude to do exciting things and to experience small failures. It's a different mindset for external contractors, it seems.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#538

Post by tastysandwich »

Not surprised! One of my first jobs was interning at a digital agency, and I really hated it. I'm probably completely biased, but I'd never hire them for anything.

One of their big sales pitches was that they didn't offshore any of the work, it was all 100% local. But they'd hire a bunch of interns to do the work, and pay them next to nothing.

In fact, the coding assignment for the interview was a client's new website. On the day I started, my first task was to finish up my coding assignment so they could sent it to the client.

Being an intern I was slower, and produced lower-quality work. All my forms would submit using GET requests instead of POST. If I had to modify how the CMS worked, I'd just modify core code instead of making an add-on. I'm sure that caused confusion when the next upgrade wiped the custom code!

And apparently it was one of "the good" digital agencies...

Re: I regret my website redesign

#540

Post by wruza »

How to make a ton of bullshit if you’re not a bull: take the least important feature and throw ten people at it who refer to themselves as “creative”. Should it be light purple or foggy morning green? We need to consult a vet.

Your site was what a site should look like, and redesign turned it into yet another ctrl-w nonsense. Personally I would ask why would you do that even if it costed $50.

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