ArtVersion contributed an article to Fast Company Executive Board on why the right people need to be involved before a website redesign moves into design.
In “Get the Right People in the Room Before Website Redesign,” ArtVersion explores how stakeholder and user workshops help organizations create shared direction before major website decisions are made. The article explains why redesigns should begin by understanding what the website needs to communicate now, how different internal teams view the organization, and where users experience confusion or friction.
The piece emphasizes that workshops are most effective when structured with intent. Leadership, marketing, communications, service teams, and users each bring different insights, and those perspectives should be gathered at the right moments in the process.
ArtVersion also highlights the importance of synthesis after the workshops, turning raw input into patterns, priorities, content structure, design direction, and long-term governance. The strongest redesigns come from shared understanding, helping the website become a clearer, more useful, and more sustainable expression of the organization.
Why Workshops Matter
Workshops give a web redesign the clarity it needs before design decisions begin. They create a structured way to understand what the organization needs to communicate, what has changed inside the business, where users are getting lost, and how different teams define success.
Without that shared understanding, redesigns can quickly become preference-driven. Teams may focus on layouts, visuals, or individual department needs before the larger purpose of the website is clear.
The value of workshops is that they turn different perspectives into usable direction. Leadership, marketing, service teams, client-facing teams, and users all see the website from different angles. When those insights are gathered with intent and synthesized carefully, the redesign becomes more focused, more practical, and more likely to support the organization after launch.