Redesigning a website is often a bigger project than it seems. It can be confusing, time-consuming and tedious. That’s why it’s important to have a clear vision for your website redesign. The clearer you are about what your goals are, the smoother the project will be. However, figuring out what to do is a challenge in itself. To make it easier, here are the top questions you need to ask yourself and your team.
Starting With The End In Mind
The last thing you want to happen is realizing that your design does not contribute to the main goal of your website near the end of the redesign project. That’s why the first question you need to ask is, “What is the main goal of my website?” Although this seems like an obvious question, many web design companies tend to drift away from answering it upfront and find themselves making unnecessary edits later on.
Every website has a different goal. It can be anything from generating sales, influencing visitors to share, bringing in leads, to getting people to click on ads. You should be very clear about your goal and what is necessary to achieve your goal. Do you need to make sure your conversions are high? Is it important to communicate a strong brand identity? Start with the end in mind, and your website design project will be focused.
Assessing Your Website’s Strengths and Weaknesses
The next question is, “What are the website’s biggest strengths and weaknesses?” Find out which areas of your design are working well. Look at individual pages, templates, formatting, conversion rates and engagement for the answers. It’s important to make sure that you keep the elements that are working, such as the font, plugins, content organization, etc. Many webmasters tend to redesign the whole thing when there are design elements that are making their website work.
Assessing the weaknesses is the other part of the equation. You’ll need to identify what elements and pages are not working. To do this, find pages that have high abandon rates, study heat maps to figure out what is distracting visitors, and look for pages that have low conversion rates. Using a combination of split testing, analytics, and website heat map tools will help unearth all this valuable information.
The third question is, “Does my website offer solid usability?” Creating the optimal user interface design is a combination of what your goals are and what people respond to. You’ll need to start out with a setup that is designed to meet your goals. You want to make sure your website navigation is clear, the site architecture is well organized, and you have a visitor funnel that leads people down the ideal path.
From there, it’s all about testing to see how people behave once on your website. You’ll have to experiment with different designs, formats, organization and layouts. For example, some eCommerce sites that have tested their navigation menu found that featuring the most popular product categories on the top left hand side resulted in more sales. In another example, blogs found that using snippets of content resulted in more readership and engagement than displaying the full content.
Connecting Your Website’s Design With Your Brand
The final question is, “Does my website reflect the mission and identity of my brand?” You want to make sure the colors, fonts and overall experience communicates the core message. This is essential in order to make sure the website experience is congruent to the public perception of your brand.
These are the most important questions that need to be asked when redesigning a website. Answering these questions will lead you to come up with a website design that is in line with your vision while also delivering an excellent experience for visitors.
Conclusion
Redesigning a website is not merely a task but a strategic initiative that requires careful consideration of various factors. The primary question that needs to be answered at the outset is about the main goal of the website. Whether it’s generating sales, acquiring leads, increasing click-through rates or enhancing brand identity, the redesign process should always align with these objectives. As such, any redesign project should commence with a clear understanding of the intended outcome to ensure a focused approach throughout.
Assessing the current strengths and weaknesses of the website forms another crucial aspect of the redesign process. Identifying the components of the site that are performing well is essential in order to retain these elements in the redesigned site. Simultaneously, it’s equally important to identify and understand the elements that aren’t working optimally. Tools such as heat maps, split testing, and analytics can be highly beneficial in this regard. They can help pinpoint high abandon rates, distractions, and low-conversion pages that need to be improved.
Furthermore, a key consideration in the website redesign process is the user experience it offers. Balancing the website’s goals with user response can lead to the creation of an optimally redesigned user interface design. To ensure a streamlined and intuitive user journey, it’s vital that website navigation is clear, the site architecture is logically organized, and there’s a visitor funnel that guides users along the desired path. Continuous testing and experimentation with different designs, formats, and layouts can also be a beneficial strategy to ascertain what resonates best with the users.
Lastly, the website’s design must align with the mission and identity of the brand. Ensuring that elements such as color, fonts, and overall user experience are consistent with the brand’s core messaging is essential to create a congruent public perception of the brand. This interplay between design and brand identity can elevate the overall website experience for visitors.
In conclusion, the process of website redesign should not be undertaken lightly. It’s a rigorous exercise that demands a clear understanding of the website’s goals, a thorough analysis of its strengths and weaknesses, a user-centric approach, and an alignment with the brand’s mission and identity. By addressing these crucial questions, the redesign process can yield a website that aligns with the brand’s vision and offers an exceptional user experience.