Comments on: A Redesign Isn’t About Design

By: Respiro the logo design guy

Respiro the logo design guy — Sat, 19 May 2007 17:07:41 +0000

A site’s redesign is a challenging process. The first task is to understand the reason why the client needs a “facelift”. After having the answer, the “how process” can be started…

By: PandaCube - A Digital Notebook » Blog Archive » Aki’s Weekly Favourites vol.3

Sat, 19 May 2007 05:10:48 +0000

[…] A Redesign Isn’t About Design Related Articles Aki’s Weekly Favourites vol.1 Aki’s Weekly Favourites vol.2 […]

By: Motorcycle Guy

Motorcycle Guy — Tue, 15 May 2007 02:38:28 +0000

I like readability and usability first then design.

By: share.websitemagazine.com

share.websitemagazine.com — Thu, 10 May 2007 13:11:26 +0000

Redesign OR Design…

A Redesign Isn’t About Design | Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design…

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 10 May 2007 00:18:14 +0000

Beware of the desire/trap of the over-designed re-design. The client wants a re-design and alot of designers and clients alike will over-design the re-design in the hopes that more is more. Sometimes the re-design was in order due to an over-designed original. Just my 2 cents. Found you from DIGG. Nice article.

By: John Gladding

John Gladding — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:20:01 +0000

You most certainly can have an ugly (but usable) design, and make lots of money. Go ask Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:02:30 +0000

Have to confess…I’ve never spent much time on Fark. I can see those ads you’re talking about, though…pretty blatant.

By: TankFox

TankFox — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:49:35 +0000

For a glowing example of how NOT to re-design a site, see Fark. I wish I had an example of the way it used to be, it was a very clean setup was easy on the eyes. Then they re-designed the site specifically to accommodate a giant square ad in the upper right hand corner of the page and now there is always a giant margin of totally wasted space running down the right hand edge of the page.

I thought about installing a greasemonkey script to reformat it, but then I realized that it wasn’t worth it. Now I digg.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:36:51 +0000

I’ve generally found that a little patience and some time giving an explanation with solid examples will take you a long way with a client. Yes, clients are frequently ignorant of the development process. Well, that’s to be expected — - it’s one of the reasons they’re hiring somebody else! Finding the way to make the questions crystal clear to the client is a burden of responsibility which has to rest on the shoulders of the designer.

It’s the client’s responsibility to understand how their business works, and make the developer understand their business needs. Everybody needs to be involved to effectively share their expertise.

By: Adam Carter

Adam Carter — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:30:33 +0000

@Viktor Tolbaum,

No, the biggest challenge is, and has always been, developer ignorance. If developers spent some time understanding users and designing their products around the actual users need, it would be a lot better.