Everyone is doing web redesign. I commented on the Mint redesign couple weeks ago. (Maybe corporate sites should have something similar to WordPress’s Themes, so they could keep change the web site skins)

The real topic that I want to talk about today is: web redesign is not a done deal. It is actually only one part of your web site’s iterative testing. Collecting feedback and doing usability after redesign open a door for the further improvement. You can also look at web redesign as a long tail effect:

• the redesign itself is a big head - lots of things have changed on the site
• the continuous refining after the redesign - move some content around, enlarge a button, get rid of some useless steps - all these little things might add up to big impact and better enhancement to the overall web site improvement. This could be the long tail

Look at TechCrunch’s redesign blog and LOOK at the 6-page long comments on this blog. These are free and first hand user feedback on their redesign. No matter how the redesign itself did, better or worse, if TechCrunch really listen to their users voice and act upon those feedback, I’m sure that their site will be eventually be better. It’s a win-win situation: better site and happy users!

My advice is: redesign is not the end of the game:

• take it as the start of your iterative optimization opportunity
• ask your audience how you did, what they liked and not
• React on their feedback.

This is the best way to get your redesign money paid off

Update:

Another example is jQuery’s redesign post & user feedback.

One more TechCruch redesign comment

Tags: redesign, social media, techcrunch, user generated content, web redesign

Mint.com has launched its new site redesign.

What do Mint’s customers expect from the redesign? I’m curious to know if Mint.com knows the answer (I hope they do ) I think it’s a good idea for anyone who has plan to do a redesign to get inputs from their customers directly. Post a question on your current site asking for visitor’s feedback “what do you expect from our redesign?”. Maybe you can give away a gift, maybe not. I am sure that you will get very valuable feedback and customer insights.

Some thoughts I have on Mint’s redesign. At the first glance, I don’t like the new site’s overall design approach (see screenshots below), because :

• it requires too many scroll downs across the site. I love the big fonts & images. But I don’t have the time & patience to scroll down several times just to read one page.
• the new lighter color scheme is too light. It’s not easy to read some words in both navigation and main body areas, because the text colors merged into the light background color.
• page layout is too lose. This is related to the first one. The space between sections can be much better managed.

One thing I do like is that the new site focuses more on explaining how/what Mint can do for you. It doesn’t matter how many features one product has. It only matters if one feature can really solve customer’s problem well. Unless marketers help customers understand what those features mean to customers, there are no good reasons to keep adding features for the sake of adding features.

Good luck to all web redesigners!

TechCrunch’s posting on Mint.com redesign

ReadWriteWeb’s posting on Mint.com redesign

homepage: after — before

Feature page: after — before

Tags: mint, mint.com, redesign, web design, web redesign