Design is about creating rational and compelling solutions. Redesigning is propelling the same process with a new approach. It's important, to begin with, understanding redesign before making the important decision.
The aim of redesigning is to create a better experience for users and improve usability. The factors that lead to the decision to redesign should be focused on increasing the user base by creating and adding new content. A redesign should shape both quantitative and qualitative design needs. The end result of a redesign should always improve the functionality by solving the existing problems.
The sole purpose of redesigning is not to rebrand, change aesthetics, look or feel and change placements of the existing elements in the layout. Although these can be a part of the whole redesign process and should contribute to content consumption and usability.
The factors to consider for a redesign.
There are several factors that result in an unsatisfying website or app —
- If a website or an app is not bringing in enough traffic.
- If the traffic is concentrated on the wrong pages.
- If the current components on the website do not contribute to generating enough leads.
- Change of goals and vision for the business.
- New marketing campaigns do not match with the current tone of the website.
- Usability issues.
- Neutral or bad User experience reviews.
The aim of a redesign.
The aim of the redesign is to bring in positive changes to the website or an app. —
- To bring reformation in business.
- Improve user experience.
- Put more emphasis on content.
- Design optimization for the reading experience
- Optimization for search engines.
- Increase conversion rate.
- Surge speed.
- Add to the core accessibility features.
- Augment product engagement.
- Built sustainable engineering developments.
- Add the features of accessibility.
- Introduce new services.
- Empower the core community.
There could be several other factors that could come in the way of an absolutely engaging website or app. To figure out those reasons the first step to the redesign process is talking to the stakeholders.
Know your stakeholders.
This is the first and most crucial step. The stakeholders usually have clarity about what hasn’t worked so far, what has and what exactly needs to be reformed! The role of the design team here is to adapt, learn and understand those details.
This is the process of asking questions and gathering all the information from the stakeholders. The answers and information collected during this meeting drive the direction for the rest of the project. It’s important to ask many questions and note down or record all the information received. The questions can be framed with the below mentioned key points and should be prepared ahead of the meeting.
- Main pain points of the current design.
- Vision for brand and business.
- Core values.
- Brand guidelines and motive.
- Motivations for a redesign.
- Existing user persona.
- Target audience.
- Data from analytics.
- Style guide.
- Good points of the current design.
- Must keep and must-haves.
- Purpose of team and community.
- Short them goals and long term achievements.
- Deadline.
An attachment of the stakeholder-oriented questions. We modify these questions based on stakeholder's initial brief. What works great with one stakeholder may not work with another.
QUESTIONS FOR STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS.pdf
Once the information is thoroughly collected it gets processed in meetings with the stakeholders and discussions with the design team, project managers and other team members which results in a concrete creative brief.
Creative Brief
The creative brief is based on the information collected from the stakeholders, analysis of the current website, competitor analysis and user research.
The aim of this step is to set clear goals, choose the right key metrics and decide a deadline for the submission of the project and present them to the stakeholders.
The agreed common goals, key metrics and the identification of deliverables and transparency work in favour of the project and the alignment between stakeholders, teams, designers, decision-makers and project managers.
A concrete creative brief keeps all on the same page and everyone remains focused as well with aligned deadlines. It’s a document where details are updated when and if new changes are agreed upon.
Strategising
Strategy informs design based on reality. It’s the foundation that everything the design creates is built on. The aim for this part of the process is to create a stepwise strategic plan which fuels the process of redesign.
All the decisions taken at this step are backed by logical and reasonable outcomes of the stakeholder's interview and the creative brief based on detailed user research, competitor analysis and analysis of the existing website.
The time and effort put in the step of strategising results in unified documentation which guides stakeholders and designers and all team members of the tactical decisions, priorities and helps overcome the identified and undefined obstacles based of research, facts and analytics.
The process of redesign further involves the process of design, creating a system and a brief about delivering assets which will be included in the next blog post, the process of redesign — part 2.
Stay safe!