Discuss: Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign

by Cameron Moll

11 Apple

An interesting study to go along with this article:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12997285@N00/sets/1210426/

posted at 02:30 pm on October 25, 2005 by brett heliker

12

The constraints of this article didn’t exactly allow me to exhaustively explain each of the three case studies. I could have devoted more time to describing 31Three, as Stan suggests, but I felt a brief explanation was sufficient in light of the other two case studies.

Long story short, I considered 31Three a realignment because it a) built on the previous structure and design, while b) “aligning” the studio with web standards and blogging. It was far from a redesign simply for the sake of new paint.

posted at 05:43 pm on October 25, 2005 by Cameron Moll

13 Its my fault, it's all my fault!

You can blame me for Cameron’s short overview of my site. He sent over some questions that I was supposed to get back to him regarding why I <strike>redesigned</strike> realigned my site… but in the flurry of getting the site done, I failed to respond.

My previous site.. which is at http://www.31three.com/oldsite was difficult to update so it got stale pretty quickly. The front page was always the exact same and the site was generally fairly “dead”. I wanted to change around the front page to add some elements that I could update from time to time as well as add a blog so that I could keep the site looking alive.

Now that the site is easy to update, I have no excuses.

posted at 07:16 pm on October 25, 2005 by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain

14 Billion Dollar Companies Have Learned

Many billion dollar companies use to redesign their sites when their stock values lowered and a new CEO came on board. Many of them have realized that listening to what the customer wants or needs is more important than a total “redesign”. Create better content, and make it pleasing and easy for the visitor (i.e. customer). Good job Cam – that’s why the large companies approach you for business!

posted at 07:59 pm on October 25, 2005 by Kraig Moll

15 The website is for customers

Many of them have realized that listening to what the customer wants or needs is more important than a total “redesign”

And let’s not forget that any change to a website – especially to the homepage – will disorientate and confuse its users … and therefore its customers. HSBC went through a phase of redesigning their home page very frequently, so that for about 4 months, every other time I tried to access my bank details, the button to log in was in a different place, looked different or had a different name.

This sort of issue ought to be picked up in a realignment, but in the more serious case of a redesign, the usual policy seems to be to change the look of everything completely – which is not good if you have a regular customer base.

posted at 09:43 am on October 26, 2005 by Stephen Down

16 Makes sense, but why not just re-develop?

That’s a good sensible article, but I’m not sure why we need to introduce the term “realign”…. It sounds good to say “don’t re-design, re-align!”, but isn’t this basically re-development?

posted at 09:56 am on October 26, 2005 by Leo Pitt

17 Great Outlook

I personally think the article presented an extremely valid point. I’ve never really thought of this before, but now I’m starting to question the proposed redesign of my company website. I have to wonder if it’s in need of the proposed rebranding and redesign, or if it simply needs to be realigned.

Either way, great article Mr. Moll. I just recently got into using web standards when designing web pages, so I had never really seen the older versions of SimpleBits. It’s pretty amazing how many times a website can be realigned, yet still maintain the creativity that made it popular. I do have one question about this whole situation. Say you created a new logo for your website, is that something deserving of a complete redesign, or just a realignment?

posted at 10:39 am on October 26, 2005 by Kevin S.

18 New logo

Say you created a new logo for your website, is that something deserving of a complete redesign, or just a realignment?

If it’s a new logo for the whole company/organisation, that is a major rebranding. It might merit a redesign of the site if it is significantly different in style or colour from the old one, or it might fit fine with the same design.

If it’s just a new logo for the website, ask yourself ‘why?’ – this is the kind of rebranding and redesigning that doesn’t help anyone, just creates work for people and a warm glow as they appreciate their own artwork.

I don’t see either of these as being suitable candidates for ‘realignment’ – you are not changing anything structural or significant – only the face of it. It might be major – a full-blown redesign – or it might be minor – a “tweak” – but unless you’re doing something more with it, I don’t think you could call it a realignment.

But I don’t know if I’m using the words in quite the same way as the author!

posted at 02:25 pm on October 26, 2005 by Stephen Down

19

For those concerned about adding yet another buzzword (“realign”) to the creative’s vocabulary, know that wasn’t my intent. Rather, the term served as a good descriptor of the difference between new paint and strategic alignment.

I don’t necessarily expect the creative community to begin using the term moving forward, but I do hope we think differently about the approach moving forward.

posted at 03:28 pm on October 26, 2005 by Cameron Moll

20 Yes, realignment may be more cost effective...

But you still have to have the underlying statement of purpose. I know there are subtle differences between realigning a project and just patching it. I’ve always said it’s not that the customer is always right, it’s their needs that are always right. A realignment as the author suggests is in many ways a stop gap to redesign. It is not a bad thing but one people should have in their minds when working with a client.

You realign when the focus may have been lost yet the content is still viable. You realign when focus is there but the content (or presentation thereof) is not at quality standards.

A redesign is when standards or strategy are no longer reflected on the page. I wished the realignment of the March of Dimes pages were Section 508 compliant, though. With all those graphics and action buttons, none were marked with alternative text. Home Page Reader (for visually impaired) barfed on that site.

posted at 07:06 pm on October 26, 2005 by Thom Wiley