blog
Information Architecture, Internet Strategy, User Experience Design, Business Decisions, Web Redesign
Does Your Web site Need a Redesign? November 9th, 2009
No Comments Choosing whether to redesign your Web site can be a difficult decision to make, especially when many organizations are cutting costs in the midst of the current economic downtown. A Web site redesign project usually requires a cross-functional team with members from multiple departments and strong internal leadership. The resources required for a redesign can be considerable, particularly for organizations which already have a lot of Web content or have multiple third-party systems integrated with their Web sites.
However, similar to making other business decisions, there are a few main criteria you can use to assess your situation and decide whether it is time for a Web site redesign:
1. Is it clear to your visitors who you are and what you do when they come to the site? Can they understand it right away? Does your site align well with the state of your business?
Usability research shows average Internet users only spend a few seconds on a site when they are linked there. They make judgments very fast about whether the site meets their expectations or ‘makes sense’ to them. If they don’t ‘get’ it, they leave quickly. If the site seems outdated and disorganized, even if the organization is the opposite in reality, it does not matter — the user will not spend more time to understand that there is a separation between the representation on the Web and the real business.
2. What does the Web landscape look like for your industry?
If your main competitors have gone through a Web redesign recently, chances are that you can learn a few things from the main changes that happened on their Web site. What new features or functionality did they introduce? Has the usability been improved? How is the online experience integrated with the off-line business? What new Web tools did they adopt that can help them meet their business goals?
After considering these questions, decide whether you need to emulate these features and functionality –or take on a more innovative approach– to stay competitive.
3. Does your website help you answer inquiries, provide information, and complete sale transactions that are a regular part of your business?
Today’s Web sites should both provide information and facilitate users’ tasks. If your site only shows content and images, but lacks any calls to action, you aren’t making your site work hard enough for your business. If you regularly answer inquiries from your customers, conduct sales transactions, think about distributing newsletters/email updates to your customers, or need to recruit members for your programs, a fundamental redesign incorporating these services into your site can help you get work done online.
4. If you are using site analytics, does your analytics report show a lot of broken links, code errors or orphaned pages? Has your site content grown significantly since the last redesign?
A large number of broken links, code errors, or orphaned pages indicate that the site needs a thorough content cleanup and reorganization. Organizations lacking clearly defined governance often fail to manage content effectively and efficiently. Additionally, as business grows, new content needs evolve, and the existing site hierarchy sometimes cannot address those needs sufficiently. At times, we’ve seen clients who can’t find what they are looking for on their own Web site because the content organization has deteriorated so much. Last but not least, without consistent content planning and overall governance, organizations often go on the path of creating multiple stand-alone sub sites external to the main site. This phenomenon can be another sign that your site content is becoming disorganized.
5. Is your site SEO friendly?
If you type in your company’s name, product line, or service offerings in Google but the search engine doesn’t rank you high in its search results, it’s time to invest some resources in search engine optimization (SEO). You lose opportunities to promote yourself online and attract new visitors with poor search engine results. Meanwhile, site local search should be optimized as well to help users locate relevant content in addition to a persistent navigation path. A site redesign can realize these SEO goals via search engine reconfiguration, taxonomy planning, friendly URL customization, and enhanced visual design for search results pages.
6. Does your site have a good navigation model?
A clear, logical, scalable, and easy-to-use navigation scheme is essential to the user experience of a Web site. It determines whether a user can dive deeper when interested. In terms of visual design, menu styles today can differ greatly from 5 years ago and Web users are quickly adapting to the latest conventions. Therefore, a well or poorly designed navigation model impacts a user’s experience with your site significantly and can result in a completely different outcome with regard to user task completion.
Newsletter
Sign up to receive our monthly email newsletter about strategy, user experience, and technology.
Careers
We are looking for experienced professionals to join us and contribute to our clients’ success.