[thelist] How often to redesign

joseph gannon ganemanrussell at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 9 16:40:42 CDT 2001


Jennifer

I think the issue of redesigning a site has to do with
both the audience and the content needs. A "hip" site
might need to be redesigned more often than a business
site such as yours.

I have been involved with several site redesigns. A
web site continually evolves as new content is added.
Many corporate sites will change and evolve as they
add new customers or functionality. I don't recommend
changing the site every 4 months just to look cool. I
can see adding new content on a regular basis. But if
you redeisgn thge site frequently, remember the user
has to learn your new navigation structure. A web site
is not like a computer interface, and users have to
get used to the navigation by visiting it.

So, when should you redesign? Constantly monitor the
site and see what problems appear. If there are major
problems then you would want to redesign it soon.
Otherwise, wait a year or two, then evaulate the site
based on the current content. For example, if you are
having trouble fitting content into the current
navigation structure, then you should consider a
redesign. Redesigning a site every 4 months is
excessive and costly, plus labor intensive.

As far as the site, I strongly recommend you remove
the underlined text "we want to stay your partner. on
the home page. Underlined text means a link. I tried
to click it and found its used just for emphasis. If
you want to emphasize something, only use bold. Using
all bold makes it harder to read. I wouold be careful
about the use of all bold.

Regarding the links at the bottom of the page, I think
you should just put the major content categories
there...Company, Services, Tracking, Quote..etc. If
you are concerned about the navigation not working
properly, I would then rethink if this is the best
approach. Unless you are confident you can clean up
all the errors that would appear in a browser, you may
have 2 versions depending upon the browser. I am not
sure if your current approach will reduce user error.
If a user can't go to a section of the site, they may
simply leave. 

Joe Gannon
--- JenniferE at mif.com wrote:
> I agree there are a lot.  I have a link to every
> page in case the menus at the top don't work due to
> browser/dhtml/etc issues.  What would you suggest?
> 
> Thanks, Jennifer
>   
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Jourard [mailto:jourard at defencelaw.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 4:04 PM
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: Re: [thelist] How often to redesign
> 
> 
> Jennifer,
> 
> I agree with those who say that once you've got a
> design that works, stay
> with it and vary only the content. I say this partly
> because any design
> changes will wreak havoc with your search engine
> rankings. If your site is
> well ranked, don't tamper with your design lightly.
> 
> BTW you have an overabundance of link buttons at the
> bottom of your page.
> I'd think about organizing them differently.
> 
> Ron Jourard
> Toronto, Canada
> www.defencelaw.com
> 
> 
> > My boss thinks our corporate web site should be
> redesigned on a regular
> basis (like every quarter or 4 months) to "keep it
> interesting".  I think
> this is excessive.  ... Web site: http://www.mif.com
> 
> 
> 
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