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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#761

Post by suction »

astura wrote: post #759
suction wrote: post #666

As a German person, this and so many other stories about customer - business relations gone awry or lost in miscommunication, I sometimes want to scream at the monitor, "why the hell wouldn't you get that in writing???" The same goes for many work situations where the boss suddenly lowers the pay or fires someone for not filling in last minute for another employee calling in sick on a weekend. How is that possible? D…

>work situations ... Don't you Americans value written contracts? No, certainly not for employment. Employment in the US is, by in large, "at will." This means either the employer or the employee can terminate the relationship for any [non-illegal] reason or no reason at all. Literally at any time. In practice this means the employee just has to deal with the whims of the employer.

How can anyone plan their future if their work situation is so insecure, i.e. have a family, get a mortgage, etc.?

Re: I regret my website redesign

#762

Post by joegahona »

bjohnson225 wrote: post #714
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…

Surely the redeeming thing about the new design is that it led to 40% higher sales? By the only metric that matters this design is significantly better than “perfect”.

I wish the OP had shared conversion rate rather than overall sales. It's hard to say that 40% higher sales wasn't the result of something completely unrelated to the redesign.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#763

Post by joegahona »

cool_scatter wrote: post #750
throwaway81523 wrote: post #40

I can't remember seeing a website redesign in my entire life that didn't make the site worse. Many sites have gone down the tubes due to redesigns while always blaming the failure on something else. Kudos for at least having the self-awareness to realize that your redesign didn't help. To first order, there's (usually) only one site metric that really matters, and that's page load speed. Craigslist still thrives desp…

> to realize that your redesign didn't help Did you miss the part where it led to a very large increase in sales?

We know the redesign _preceded_ an increase in sales. More info is needed to know how/whether it actually led to sales.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#764

Post by deaddodo »

ncallaway wrote: post #421
deaddodo wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a contractor told me to "get lost" over a $15k contract for a three-page rework + redesign; I'd just respond "gladly". That is a dead simple ask and something that could easily be handled by one front-end dev + one designer in 1-2 weeks of half-time work. That easily covers their salaries (in LA, at least) + 30-50% overhead. You would probably pad that out to a month for other jobs + unknowables; but I would be ab…

Well, I was talking about dev work rather than design work. A 3 page build for a marketing website is probably very well scoped for the dev work (if the designs are done). If the designs _aren’t_ done, though, and the fixed bid includes the client signing off on the visual look and feel, then… that’s not a tightly scoped requirement. Could we do the dev in that budget? Almost certainly, I cannot imagine it taking lon…

> and the fixed bid includes the client signing off on the visual look and feel

He came to them specifically because he liked other work they had done and wanted something similar. Are there still vagaries between integration and specific brand tweaks? Sure. But don't pretend this is a major corporate rebrand or anything. The only discovery is his tastes.

If it's that big of a worry: make visual sign-off milestone one. Add a 10-15% upfront deposit and you both will know in a week or so whether it's right to move on with minimal loss to both parties.

Either way, he'd be much better off than 6mos+ of work at 450% of his original budget.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#765

Post by tillinghast »

exikyut wrote: post #390
tillinghast wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw some sriracha on that BK PB burger and that would be _magnificent_.

* Adds "peanut butter and sriracha" to list of improbable combinations to investigate *

It is beautiful. Do it. Works best with sweetish-savory items. I first stumbled upon it when I put peanut butter & Sriracha on an omelette filled with pork sausage, bacon, and browned onions / mushrooms.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#766

Post by koshnaranek »

bequanna wrote: post #383
WorldMaker wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be the point where sunk cost fallacy strikes hard in the post to me. They had paid $X for "80% of the first milestone of work" and that sunk cost locks them in to everything else that happens. They seemed too fearful from that point onward that if they fired the agency and brought in a new agency or freelancer that they would start from square 1 and do all of the previous work (and spend) over again. Th…

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…

Such things can happen very easily even when everybody has good intentions especially if nobody keeps the entire team focused.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#767

Post by ncallaway »

deaddodo wrote: post #764
ncallaway wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I was talking about dev work rather than design work. A 3 page build for a marketing website is probably very well scoped for the dev work (if the designs are done). If the designs _aren’t_ done, though, and the fixed bid includes the client signing off on the visual look and feel, then… that’s not a tightly scoped requirement. Could we do the dev in that budget? Almost certainly, I cannot imagine it taking lon…

> and the fixed bid includes the client signing off on the visual look and feel He came to them specifically because he liked other work they had done and wanted something similar. Are there still vagaries between integration and specific brand tweaks? Sure. But don't pretend this is a major corporate rebrand or anything. The only discovery is his tastes. If it's that big of a worry: make visual sign-off milestone on…

> He came to them specifically because he liked other work they had done and wanted something similar.

Right, but, for the third time, I was providing my input for a dev agency (not design agency) perspective. I was generally providing another perspective of input on fixed bid contracts.

I’m sure you can make fixed bid projects work with design agencies, and I agree that it will ensure the risk remains with the agency (but also that it’s possible that you end up spending more than with a carefully managed T&M project.

But, again, I’m not an expert at working with design agencies, and I’m not making any recommendations about the best way to work with a design agency.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#769

Post by lmm »

josefx wrote: post #711
lmm wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd bet you a large sum of money this agency used Agile. They probably said the word "agile" a lot and then continued doing something else, that seems to be the usual pattern. > Agile is not a guarantee of deliverables you care about. There is a lot of useless stuff you can deliver. Which is why it's the product owner's responsibility to prioritise.

> Which is why it's the product owner's responsibility to prioritise. The company didn't seem to have issues prioritizing the authors tasks into no mans land. So they seem to have that part down great already. However I find the consistent two week deliveries early on a bit disturbing, in my experience two weeks is exactly one sprint and fixing deliverables to that time window means that you can't really do any agile…

The whole point of agile is that you deliver something every two weeks. Whatever it is you're suggesting, it's not agile.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#770

Post by leaflets2 »

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…

> ultimately you're setting everyone up to fail.

The agency didn't fail? They made lots of money and can do the same scammy thing again and again

More like a success story for them

> Honesty is key for all parts

I think it's not, not for agencies that want to maximize revenue

(Unfortunately.)

Seems you're a bit ideologically driven though, which is nice I think :-)

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