Redesigning an existing site or service can vary in scope from a tactical improvement to a complete reinvention. You may have a site that is failing in key areas and needs to be improved. You may just as easily have a vast, sprawling service that has grown wild and out of control over the years of its life. You may simply want a change of direction.
No matter what the reason, or the scale of the problem, we have the skills and experience to deliver an effective and successful redesign.
Why redesign?
There are numerous reasons to redesign your existing site or service. Even a highly successful site will benefit from a periodic redesign: we have yet to see an established site that cannot be improved.
Some of the more common reasons are:
- Market dynamics: your peers or competitors have made improvements and you need to keep pace or overtake them.
- Operational performance: your site is not performing as it should against the standards you have set for it.
- Business or brand repositioning: your business changes its focus (or its personality) and your site needs to adapt to reflect that change.
- Merger or acquisition: you have brought two companies together and need to reflect the new joint offer.
- Organic growth: your site has grown and grown, probably under multiple owners, has all sorts of annexes and has become impossible to use or maintain.
- New ideas: you feel that you should be doing more with your website, and have ideas for new services that can be offered online.
- Outdated: the design simply feels out of touch with modern sites and you feel it represents you poorly.
- Legislation: you are breaching current accessibility, data protection, industry or other legislation and you need to address it.
How can we help?
We're the perfect partner for anyone with a redesign challenge. We can help you with every aspect of the process, from an evaluation of your existing position through to delivery of every aspect of a new solution.
Talk to us about what you need and we'll help you to think through your options.
Frequently asked questions
Can you work with my own web development team?
Yes. Many of our clients have their own technology teams, or an existing relationship with a technology partner. We have a long history of working with in-house teams and third party tech teams successfully, and we're comfortable working with everything from traditional waterfall programmes to fully agile methods of delivery.
Can you manage the entire site design, build and hosting?
Yes. We are happy to manage an end-to-end project for you, but typically we will introduce you to specialist partners for back-end technology and hosting (unless you need a Drupal based site, which we are skilled in delivering). You can then choose whether to work with them directly, or to have us manage the entire relationship transparently. Either way, we don't charge any kind of markup on partners services: if we manage them for you, we simply charge you for the time it takes us (which is generally very little).
Can you use my existing content?
Of course. If your content is good, and appropriate to the new site, we'll use it. If we feel the content needs work, we'll make our recommendations on where and how it should be improved.
Can you create new content for me?
Yes. We can produce anything: a few key statements, editing existing content, or creating everything you need. We can help with messaging, written content, photography, illustration, sound, video, creating PDF's... pretty much anything you could put in a website.
Can you help me manage my site successfully?
Yes. We frequently help clients set up their internal design and development teams. We can create detailed guidelines, help integrate processes, supply templates, and so on. Frequently, we're asked to set up a process to allow for easy integration with a client's own resources, so we can pass production files on to internal teams for ongoing management, integrate with version control systems (or integrate clients into ours) for development, or almost any other way of working that's required.
I need to make my site accessible to comply with the Disabilities Discrimination Act. Do I need to redesign completely?
Usually, but not always. To comply with accessibility legislation, your site needs to be planned and designed carefully, and built using modern development techniques. Remember though, fully supporting accessibility legislation will also improve the performance of your site for every customer, will ensure that your site is compatible with future browser software, and will make future developments cheaper and faster and so on. Some sites can be 'fixed' but they will usually only be sites that were developed recently, to modern standards.