First, there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the Usability camp about redesigns and how radical they should be.

Mr. Nielson’s thoughts resonated with me given that our OnTarget product is generally focused on incremental improvement of clients’ existing websites. He urges readers to avoid redesigns that involve massive change to a site’s user interface.  Why?  Because users (read: customers and prospects) hate change and love the familiar, even if we as marketers are sick of how our own sites look.  It’s always good advice to “evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design.”  He also recommends “getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live several years with minor updates.”  I think that’s a key point: a good (re)design is one that can stay fresh and current for several years, and accommodate a process of continuous improvement and incremental change.

I’ve seen many gorgeous site redesigns that didn’t stand up to that criteria–they weren’t well-coded, well-documented, or maintainable.  And when it came time to start optimizing, the marketing team found many unexpected constraints that made incremental changes more expensive than they bargained for.

Another point I’d like to drive home is that redesigns should be done with ROI in mind, not because internal stakeholders are sick of the look and feel.  There should be documented goals that can be measured, for example, increasing pages per visit by 20%, and increasing conversion rate by 5%.  And flexibility should be built in, so that you can always have a “to do list” of small improvements you can implement each month to incrementally build on your successes.

Finally, if you are considering a moderate to major redesign, keep in mind that usability testing can be done on very simple prototypes before you make major investments.  And, we love giving feedback on mockups, wireframes, prototypes, etc. because it allows our clients to launch with the best possible product, after which we start the process of continuous improvement.

What I love most about this list is the way it segregates into sub-components or elaborations on Future Now’s  three questions that are the basis of Persuasion Architecture:

1) Who is coming to the site?

2) What is it they are trying to accomplish?

3) What action do we want them to take, and how do we ensure this matches up with what they are trying to accomplish?  In other words, what do they need to know/feel/believe in order to confidently take that action?

Separating out Seth’s List

Here’s how I see Seth’s list falling into those categories:

1) Who is coming to the site?

• Who are we trying to please? If it’s the boss, what does she want? Is impressing a certain kind of person important? Which kind?
• Who are we trying to reach? Is it everyone? Our customers? A certain kind of prospect?
• What are the sites that this group has demonstrated they enjoy interacting with?
• Do people find the site via word of mouth? Are they looking to answer a specific question?
• Will the site need to be universally accessible? Do issues of disability or language or browser come into it?

2) What is it they are trying to accomplish?

• “If it’s the boss [that we are trying to please], what does she want?”
• “Are they looking to answer a specific question?
• Does showing up in the search engines matter? If so, for what terms? At what cost? Will we be willing to compromise any of the things above in order to achieve this goal?

3) What action do we want them to take…what do they need to know/feel/believe in order to confidently take that action?

• What is the goal of the site?
• In other words, when it’s working great, what specific outcomes will occur?
• Are we trying to close sales?
• Are we telling a story?
• Are we earning permission to follow up?
• Are we hoping that people will watch or learn?
• Do we need people to spread the word using various social media tools?
• Are we building a tribe of people who will use the site to connect with each other?
• Is there ongoing news and updates that need to be presented to people?
• Is the site part of a larger suite of places online where people can find out about us, or is this our one sign post?
• Is that information high in bandwidth or just little bits of data?
• Do we want people to call us?
• How many times a month would we like people to come by? For how long?

Operational [and larger] Questions

Yet, while Seth’s persuasive questions are covered within these three categories, there’s a pile of operational questions left over:

• How many people on your team have to be involved? At what level?
• Who needs to update this site? How often?
• How often can we afford to overhaul this site?
• How much money do we have to spend? How much time?

In other words, what will this cost us? A question that opens the door for much larger debate of, do we really need to incur this cost in the first place?  What makes us think we need a redesign?

And that gets us to the question that our own Jeffrey Eisenberg tackled within his free report 7 Big Questions of Highly Effective Online Marketing. For starters he suggests that people interested in redoing their site should ask the big questions first:

• Do we need a redesign, or can we work with what we have?
• Exactly how would a redesigned site better serve our visitors?
• If the best-converting sites are often boring in their design, are we willing to design our site with that in mind?  [in other words, do we have the intellectual integrity to separate out an notional "want" for a prettier/slicker website from a real business need]
• Will we incorporate a scientific testing methodology into our redesign so we can optimize user interactions based on predictions of how our different audience segments will engage with the site? [in other words, are we really serious about redesigning to improve performance?  Serious enough to bake accountability into the very fabric of the redesigned site?]

And if you’re not sure if you need a redesign, perhaps it’s best to take a cold hard look at your current Website in order to:

• Isolate what isn’t working and what is
• Determine whether you need to re-conceive your site because too many elements bog down the original design

On Target as a Precursor and Follow-up to a Website Redo

While Future Now has been involved in hundreds of successful Website redesigns and renovations, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg clearly saw that there were far more sites out there in need of optimization and improvement than full scale redesigns.

And far more Website owners who couldn’t answer the majority of the questions posed in Seth’s post and Jeffrey’s report.

That’s how OnTarget was born.

OnTarget allows Website owners to gain insight into what is and isn’t working with their current site, and provides them with prioritized recommendations to optimize the site, fix the leaks, etc. Think of it as an incremental redesign based on measurable results.

With OnTarget it is only when major persuasive and usability obstacles can’t be surmounted without major retooling, re-skinning, etc. that a site redesign is contemplated.  And in those cases, the business owners are able to answer those critical questions posed by Seth and Jeffrey.

This often means walking away from big redesign projects.  But it always means providing the client with the wisest and best use of his online resources.

[Editors Note:  The author of this article is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

I’m not a mind-reader, but I think it’s due in part to an all-or-nothing mentality where nothing short of a full optimization ‘project’ is worth putting effort into.  Most companies are more interested in redesigning their websites all at once instead of incrementally, even though incremental optimization is far less expensive, less risky, and more accountable!

Maybe you heard the expression – how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time!

Sometimes, we tell our clients to redesign and optimize a small design element of their site; their call to action buttons, for example. And they seem tentative and slow to implement the recommendation.  Why?  Maybe because they think it has to be 100% optimized right away, or that it has to be perfect to be worth taking action on.

A useful model to get past this mode of thinking is to use the Hierarchy of Optimization which we’ve talked about on this blog in the past.  It’s a great mental model to show clients the roadmap of how they should be optimizing, and in what order.

Take a quick look at the hierarchy diagram, and then I’ll apply the model to real-life design elements that most sites should be taking a look at.  Note that the Hierarchy has 5 levels: the Functional, the Accessible, the Usable, the Intuitive, and the Persuasive. While you can apply the 5 levels at a “macro” level on your entire site, you can also apply them at the “micro” level on a single landing page or even small design elements.

Example 1 – Call to Action Buttons

• Persuasive – Do all the layers of the pyramid work together as a cohesive whole?  Are you actively testing your buttons?  Do all your calls to action pair an imperative verb with an implied benefit?  Do they answer WIIFM?
• Intuitive – Do your buttons look like buttons?  Do they look “clickable”?  Do they feature 3-d effects, shading, or rich surfaces?
• Usable – Are your calls to action always located in a consistent position on pages? Do they follow the prospect’s eye path as it travels down the page?  On your forms, do the buttons line up with the “scan line“?
• Accessible – Is there alt text behind your calls to action?  If you use graphics, do they load and render in all your supported OS/Browser combinations?
• Functional – Do all your pages even have a primary call to action button?  Are any of them broken?  Is anyone responsible for occasionally testing them?

Example 2 – Testimonials

• Persuasive – Are your testimonials architected to answer questions and overcome objections through out the prospect’s buying process?  Are your testimonials as ‘real’ as possible, using pictures of the customer?  How about video testimonials?  Are you constantly testing to find the right formula for your business?
• Intuitive – Do your testimonials follow common design patterns for displaying quotes?  Are relevant testimonials placed on key pages to answer your prospects’ unanswered questions? Do you attribute quotes with name, location, and other relevant information?
• Usable – Are your testimonials readable?  Are they an appropriate font size and contrast?  Do prospects have to go hunting for them, or are they spread throughout the site?
• Accessible – In this case, Accessible and Usable can be thought of as essentially the same layer of the pyramid.  See Usable.
• Functional – Do you have testimonials?  Are they legitimate?  Do you have permission to attribute the author with at least a first name and last initial?

Besides what I hope are useful questions to ask yourself, the point of all this is to encourage everyone to start today on optimization, take baby steps, and work your way up the Hierarchy.  As the old saying goes: You can’t eat an elephant in just one bite!

One of the first things I noticed (and liked) was that the homepage was quite tall.  Many designers seem averse to tall homepage designs, thinking that everything simply has to be above the fold.  The fact is, visitors will definitely scroll if the content is engaging and answering their questions.

For the sake of dissection, I’m breaking it into top section, middle section, and bottom section, so click on a

thumbnail to see each section a bit bigger.

Top Section  – Things We Like to See

1. The correlation between the parent company and the product brand is clear but unobtrusive.  A simple link takes you to the parent company, and the word “presents” above the brand sets up the understanding of the parent/child relationship.
2. Unique Value Proposition is prominent and below the logo
3. Key benefits are bulleted for fast-moving personas.
4. Primary and secondary calls to action are clear, prominent, and the primary button is above the fold.
5. Bonus: this is of no real value, but re-size the browser’s width and you’ll see the top of the design do cool stuff!

Middle Section – Things We Like to See

1. Uses graphics to illustrate a process/concept.  Not everyone loves to read; some visitors love diagrams.
2. Expands on the core concepts with brief paragraphs and uses bolding.
3. Provides a screenshot of the application, so visitors can get a sense of its intuitive or “magical” interface.

Bottom Section Things We Like to See

1. Use of video demo.  Not everyone loves to read or look at diagrams; some visitors love video.
2. Deeper level of detail about system requirements, pricing, etc.
3. They support a cause.  This isn’t just a cute gorilla-themed design; they are using a portion of profits to support a cause they care about.

Suggestions for Improvement

I’m obviously a fan of this design, so I’ll offer the site owners a few optimization concepts.

• Test.  If you’re not already testing your homepage, you’re missing out.
• You have well written copy, but linking key phrases can drive traffic into the site to get their questions answered and convert.
• Your “save the gorillas” angle is too easily-missed.
• The diagram in the middle section could be interactive.
• Calls to action only at the top of the page.  I’d repeat them lower on the page, even if they were just links in body text.

Now, who else wants some dissection and optimization?

ESPN.com - 2009 first major redesign

In the first major redesign of the new year, ESPN.com unveils it’s latest redesign today, after two weeks in “private” Beta for it’s Insider subscribers.  Despite the two week focus group, today’s redesign doesn’t appear noticeably different from the version that launched privately 12/15.  Their stated goals were:

1) less clutter, ostensibly to drive higher engagement (more time spent on site, more pageviews, more traffic)
2) more ad space, to drive higher revenue

Do you think the new site accomplishes it’s objectives?

I’m not sure they achieve their primary objective (although one must wonder if that’s really their #1 goal behind the scenes in Bristol, or do Advertisers trump Audience?) as “less” clutter is a relative term.  I wouldn’t exactly describe the redesign as minimalist.  There are some nice touches though, even if they’re slightly hidden (checkout the scoreboard on the homepage, above the top navigation).  As for goal #2, after visiting last night I fell asleep dreaming of buying a new F150, and couldn’t figure out why the Ford homepage had so many clips from Sportscenter on it, so I’d call that a success!

Let’s hear your thoughts.  What works, what doesn’t?  How will you apply these lessons in your own redesign efforts in 2009? (Hopefully NOT by taking 1 calendar year to work on a single redesign!)  We’d love you to weigh in…

But then where does that leave broad-based gender differences and reality-based demographic information?  For instance, women make or influence 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions and control the finances in 53% of US households. Actually, to me, that last statistic seems low. If “controlling the finances” means balancing the checkbook and paying the bills, I’d bet far more than 53% of the household finances are controlled by women, either way, that’s a lot of checking accounts in female hands.

And that brings me to the new Mint.com redesign.  Bryan Eisenberg turned me on to Patrick Sullivan’s analysis of both the old and new Mint.com websites over at his Edit Weapon blog. Great stuff to be sure, and his analysis turned me onto a miniature (and admittedly non-scientific) trend: most guys I talked to didn’t like the new mint redesign as well as the old (beloved) website.  And yet the new site was outperforming the old site by 20% according to some accounts. What gives?

Well to me it seemed reasonable to believe that the new site might be preferred by and outperforming with female visitors rather than the tech-centric guys I was talking to. And in taking a closer look at the design, it seemed as if it lined up with some well-known broad-based gender preferences.

My guess is that guys prefer the old site because of the design cues and because of the buying mode they’re likely to be in when they are not in charge of a family’s finances. The old site:

• seemed dark even when it wasn’t,
• immediately directed your eye to bottom line benefits, and
• made it easy to either “Just Do It” or “Learn More”

All of these things seemed like they would appeal to faster decision makers who had a bit less (emotionally) on the line. The old site promised to “Put your finances on autopilot,” which is definitely a non-budgeted guy thing.

Comparatively, the new site:

• has a decidedly friendlier, lighter, and more open feel to it
• doesn’t harshly direct your eye, but lets you gather the information as you wish
• provides immediate credibility clues through prestigious magazine endorsements underneath the headline.
• explains HOW and WHY mint can accomplish great things for you within the first paragraph – and does so without visually “shouting” at you.
• lets visitors go beyond just “Learn More” to learn about benefits of concern to someone who has to handle a family’s budget or finances: “all your accounts in one place,” “easy budgeting tools,” “Find Instant Savings,” etc. Yes, this requires more brain power or emotional investment to navigate, but it’s clearly more compelling if you’re the one trying to stretch a family budget.
• Replaces “Put your finances on autopilot” with “How mint can help you live a richer life,” which – when you think of richer in it’s more suggestive or emotional connotations – also seems more broadly appealing to females in charge of the family finances.

So my question is, so you guys and gals also find this to be the case? Do your female friends prefer the new mint while your male friends prefer the old? Do you think my analysis is on-target or am I somewhat biased?

Who would throw away a perfectly good UFO house?

That’s exactly what happened in Taiwan more than 20 years ago, as you can see from these Flickr photos.

Wow. An entire resort filled with UFO-style houses.

Abandoned.

Seeing this made me think of the websites that are abandoned each day, each quarter, by businesses that decide they need to redesign instead of enduring the less glamorous process of website optimization.

According to one blog, there are a several rumors as to why the “UFO house” resort in Sanjhih was abandoned. One story suggests that someone was killed there and the resort is haunted. Another is that the Taiwanese government outlawed bathing beaches in the area. But the most believable explanation is that the design was impractical; the resort is in a remote, windy area near the sea, and if the houses are indeed made of fiberglass as it appears, it would get incredibly hot in the summertime.

Form without function is art, not business.

In August of last year, Internet Retailer’s Form and Function survey of “243 chain retailers, catalog companies, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers,” and found that…

60.3% . . . have redesigned their e-commerce sites in the past year, including 20.1% in the past three months and 14.3% within six months. Of the retailers planning to overhaul the look of their web sites, 74.7% expect to do so within 12 months and 28.6% within 90 days.

[...] “The pace of web site design is brisk because more retailers know that having an attractive site that makes it easy to find merchandise and make a purchase is a competitive advantage,” says Joey Lechtner, director of e-marketing services for Fry Inc., an Ann Arbor, Mich., web site design and e-commerce development company. “Retailers ‘keep up with the Jones’ [sic] and if their competitor redesigns a site, they notice and take action.”

A costly redesign? Just to keep up with the neighbors? What if these earthlings — these so-called “Joneses” — take their design cues from outer space? Sure, there are times when a website redesign makes sense, but if you plan it with human visitors in mind in the first place, redesigning each year would seem crazy.

And let’s face it. Maybe you don’t need a redesign. Maybe you just need to recognize that you’ve built a cool-looking-yet-impractical UFO house that would be fine if you just painted it white and installed solar panels, reflective glass and an air conditioner.

That’s my website optimization metaphor and I’m sticking to it. For now.

Over 800 people showed up to hear the speakers and meet with consultants (like me) to evaluate their current websites — and some even discussed mock-ups and prototypes of new versions of their sites. My back-of-the-napkin calculation is that Internet Retailer gave away around $150,000 worth of consultations, but I’ll ask you the one common question I asked several of the companies I met with just for the price of spending a few minutes reading.

What makes you think the new design you’re working on is going to work any better than the one you have today?

I recall sitting with one of the most recognized brands on the Web and him pulling out his mock-ups. They felt that they had issues around how products were presented and how their navigation worked. They offered a complex menu with way too many options in their current navigation, and were hoping to improve it by using a top level menu with a javascript rollover.

“What research do you have that indicates that new navigation will work better than the current one?” I asked. He was honest and said, “None.”

So why don’t you test it?

Internet Retailer did a pre-conference survey and asked the top 500 retailers if they’re doing multivariate or A/B testing, and included the results in their Website Design & Usability Guide.

Amazingly, 76.7% of retailers surveyed don’t test!

Huh? Now that you can get A/B and Multivariate testing tools for free from Google, why aren’t you testing?

We’ve also found that it’s safer to roll out a redesign in stages, in order to avoid the initial drop in conversion that often results from a redesign. Why not roll this out as a series of tests?

If you need help, call us at 877-643-7244 (ext. 3316). We’d be happy to help you make more money before and after your redesign.