Ten Sure-Fire Ways To Screw Up Your Next Web Redesign (Part 1)
I've screwed up web redesigns almost every way possible. Sharing tips to help you avoid common pitfalls.
Before you embark on your next web site redesign project, why not make things really challenging? At Velir, a digital experience agency, we’ve helped lots of organizations reach new levels of digital maturity and improved website performance. Along the way, we’ve also uncovered some common mistakes that will keep just about any web redesign from achieving its full potential. Here are ten common mistakes that can derail even the most well-intentioned project.
1. Don’t worry about digital strategy – jump right to visual redesign.
Mention “digital strategy” at your next meeting and you’re sure to get some skeptical comments, maybe even a few eye rolls. It’s not surprising. These days, organizational digital strategy is often tossed around as the great panacea; a magic elixir that will make everything better, the Holy Grail every organization should strive for. But who really understands what digital strategy is, let alone how to develop and document it?
The truth is that digital strategy is critically important for organizations that use technologies to conduct their core business operations (which is just about every organization we know). While developing and documenting a digital strategy can be time-intensive, it can also be simple and straightforward.
Think of digital strategy as the way your organization will use technology to better achieve its mission and reach short- and long-term operational goals. As technology and customer behavior evolves over time, so should your digital strategy, allowing you to take advantage of new ways to stay competitive and relevant. It’s important to step back from your web design to think this through a bit. By aligning your customers’ behaviors, organizational goals, and applied technologies, you’ll develop a solid foundation for how you structure your web site as well the features, functions, and design elements of your new web presence.