Everybody that is involved with anything creative or that uses a communication medium to get their information across to the masses inevitably asks themselves about how good what they are using really is. This isn't a bad question but the methodology for fixing the issue and moving forward generally falls into various levels of good, bad, foolish and downright ugly. I won't cover the idea as a whole but I would like to talk about websites and how people perceive change there from my perspective.
A few months ago, I started designing a website which I was going to use for my personal promotion. The site had a lot of defining parameters around it ranging from social media contacts, contextual navigation and some other little oddities. However, about two weeks into the process, I decided it just wasn't going to cut it and instead of looking at what was good and retaining it, I simply trashed the entire folder leaving myself no chance to ever get it back. Some people might say that this is a terrible practice and can only be afforded to people that have no contracts or financial responsibilities associated with a site. Others might argue that some critical design elements got lost along the way with all the deleting and trashing. While this might work in instances where critical data and design needs to be retained, I believe that total trashing is warranted more than 70% of the time. The reason I warrant such a big number to the idea of trashing is for the following reasons.
Most sites have no lexical backbone
Whenever I look at a dynamic or static site, I always ask myself what would happen if I removed all the fluff and the unnecessary elements from the page. Would I be left with a skeleton that could easily be dressed up to look human again? Or do I end up with a framework that will require to be coaxed and cajoled to look like something new? If the answer is the latter, I just trash it. Poor design requires a very crude handling because hidden inside the lexicons of poor design is something even more dangerous ... more poor design. I always try to imagine a website like a little child who needs to be dressed for different occasions. The child is always the same but the occasion is different and all that is required is the appearance and mannerism of that child. You change the clothes, the haircut, the height, the weight or even limbs (I am not a sadist) and yet the child is still the same person he/she was before you did everything you could. When sites have no clear definition of what they want to provide at the very core of their existence, this turns into a much bigger problem than hiring a bunch of people and asking them to make you something 'cool'. I have learned over time that if the base of my design is clear and the vision of what the site is going to provide, integrate and allow to scale are very clear then it doesn't matter if I have to change the look of the site or even adopt new technologies (within reason) because the base of the site will always be designed to do just that.
But we want to keep Function X because it was really very good
I love ketchup. I love it so much that giving it up almost seems criminal. But then I ask myself, would I eat ketchup with a really good ice-cream and then I start realizing that my love of ketchup is contextual. The same goes for site-design and more with site-redesign. When looking at revamping or redesigning everything, I like to think that the site never existed and focus on what the goal is versus keeping functions that existed on the old site. There may be exceptions here but I can safely say that even those exceptions are really never good enough to reintroduce themselves into the new design because they are also going to be completely redesigned. Sometimes, a site owner or a project owner will be adamant about these kinds of topics. I try and dissuade them from following this path because now the overall design starts to incorporate restrictions that forced the old site to get into a state of redesign. I also ask myself whether bringing in older functions is really necessary because if you are bring back something old then what does that do to your overall view or projection of how the site is going to function and feel.
Lets change everything all at once
This is generally a great idea but it also comes at a price ... time. If you've got enough time and can set good project deadlines then this works the best. However, in the real world, time is always a huge factor in any revamp project and tends to leave the door open for compromises to be made on various parts of a project. If time is a factor, I always recommend hitting the parts of the site that need the most work first and then slowly branch out to the parts of the site that are lower down the chain. Ideally, this wold never be the case if the site had a consistent flow throughout its design but with old methodologies seeing an exit from the design arena this does happen quite a bit.
I could go on more here but these three topics are what I feel start me down the path of trashing versus keeping and upgrading. In most cases, I see a design and really appreciate it until I start looking deeper and expose flaws that I would like to eradicate with tighter planning. I have been pretty successful in keeping my current design with these thoughts in mind but even I know how easily that could be changed.
P.S. The site goes up at the end of March and if you are on this blog and read it I would definitely love to hear from you about whether I managed to practice what I am preaching.
A few months ago, I started designing a website which I was going to use for my personal promotion. The site had a lot of defining parameters around it ranging from social media contacts, contextual navigation and some other little oddities. However, about two weeks into the process, I decided it just wasn't going to cut it and instead of looking at what was good and retaining it, I simply trashed the entire folder leaving myself no chance to ever get it back. Some people might say that this is a terrible practice and can only be afforded to people that have no contracts or financial responsibilities associated with a site. Others might argue that some critical design elements got lost along the way with all the deleting and trashing. While this might work in instances where critical data and design needs to be retained, I believe that total trashing is warranted more than 70% of the time. The reason I warrant such a big number to the idea of trashing is for the following reasons.
Most sites have no lexical backbone
Whenever I look at a dynamic or static site, I always ask myself what would happen if I removed all the fluff and the unnecessary elements from the page. Would I be left with a skeleton that could easily be dressed up to look human again? Or do I end up with a framework that will require to be coaxed and cajoled to look like something new? If the answer is the latter, I just trash it. Poor design requires a very crude handling because hidden inside the lexicons of poor design is something even more dangerous ... more poor design. I always try to imagine a website like a little child who needs to be dressed for different occasions. The child is always the same but the occasion is different and all that is required is the appearance and mannerism of that child. You change the clothes, the haircut, the height, the weight or even limbs (I am not a sadist) and yet the child is still the same person he/she was before you did everything you could. When sites have no clear definition of what they want to provide at the very core of their existence, this turns into a much bigger problem than hiring a bunch of people and asking them to make you something 'cool'. I have learned over time that if the base of my design is clear and the vision of what the site is going to provide, integrate and allow to scale are very clear then it doesn't matter if I have to change the look of the site or even adopt new technologies (within reason) because the base of the site will always be designed to do just that.
But we want to keep Function X because it was really very good
I love ketchup. I love it so much that giving it up almost seems criminal. But then I ask myself, would I eat ketchup with a really good ice-cream and then I start realizing that my love of ketchup is contextual. The same goes for site-design and more with site-redesign. When looking at revamping or redesigning everything, I like to think that the site never existed and focus on what the goal is versus keeping functions that existed on the old site. There may be exceptions here but I can safely say that even those exceptions are really never good enough to reintroduce themselves into the new design because they are also going to be completely redesigned. Sometimes, a site owner or a project owner will be adamant about these kinds of topics. I try and dissuade them from following this path because now the overall design starts to incorporate restrictions that forced the old site to get into a state of redesign. I also ask myself whether bringing in older functions is really necessary because if you are bring back something old then what does that do to your overall view or projection of how the site is going to function and feel.
Lets change everything all at once
This is generally a great idea but it also comes at a price ... time. If you've got enough time and can set good project deadlines then this works the best. However, in the real world, time is always a huge factor in any revamp project and tends to leave the door open for compromises to be made on various parts of a project. If time is a factor, I always recommend hitting the parts of the site that need the most work first and then slowly branch out to the parts of the site that are lower down the chain. Ideally, this wold never be the case if the site had a consistent flow throughout its design but with old methodologies seeing an exit from the design arena this does happen quite a bit.
I could go on more here but these three topics are what I feel start me down the path of trashing versus keeping and upgrading. In most cases, I see a design and really appreciate it until I start looking deeper and expose flaws that I would like to eradicate with tighter planning. I have been pretty successful in keeping my current design with these thoughts in mind but even I know how easily that could be changed.
P.S. The site goes up at the end of March and if you are on this blog and read it I would definitely love to hear from you about whether I managed to practice what I am preaching.
