10 Mistakes To Avoid While Redesigning Your Website
Creating a website that spells success online is a daunting task no doubt. But the real challenge lies in the sustaining it through time and making it survive in cyberspace.
And to keep up with the changing times, what better than giving your website a facelift?
However, redesigning a website is a crucial ballgame too and demands plenty of caution. There are certain things you should never do no matter how tempting they might seem:
- Never launch a new web design before it is cross-browser tested
Make sure you test the new design in all the major browsers like IE, Firefox, and Netscape etc. before launching it formally. You will do well saving yourself the discovery that the site is all tatters in some browser you forgot to test it on.
- Never launch a new web design without informing your visitors
Surprises are always fun but if the risks concern your visitors, you might as well chuck it. Inform your visitors and clients that a new design is coming up. And if by chance you have already launched it, keep a real good explanation ready. Your visitors are family after all and they deserve to know!
- Don’t remove all key recognition elements at one go
Think about how’d you feel if your girlfriend goes to get a makeover, but returns with a complete plastic surgery done?? Likewise, don’t erase out your previous visual identity completely. Keep some things back. Like you can update certain elements but yet keep them recognizable so that your visitors aren’t estranged.
- Don’t make everything hard to find
If you are redesigning, you sure will be doing a lot of moving around. Just take care not to move elements so much that it’s difficult to locate them. Remember that your visitors will be used to the original placement of objects and will be all confused if they don’t find it there. Try and keep everything in the second most obvious place (the first being your old design’s locations of course)
- Don’t jump onto the popular style bandwagon
You will sure be tempted to try out the new trends of the industry. But for them to be trends, they have to be quite popular. And if they are popular, that means there are lots of sites out there who have it on!
Focus on being different rather. And if at all you have to go with the ‘flavor of the season,’ then take parts of it that you like the most. However, be cautious how the overall design turns out.
- Don’t launch too early
It is real easy to launch early and say “Yeah yeah! I’ll fix the rest later.” But it doesn’t really work that easy. In the time you take to fix things, there will be visitors coming on and getting a taste of the unfinished elements. If you’re doing a beta launch, make sure you don’t stay like that forever. Your design should be up and done when you launch it, or if not actually done at least appears to be.
- Don’t redesign every now and then
Again???
That’ll be the feedback you get from your clients if you get into the habit of redesigning your site at every instant. While updating is a good thing redesigning frequently is not! Commit to you new design and give it time to exist. Maybe they’ll take time to reap benefits.
- Never remove features without reason
There are certain features that are for keeps. No matter the extent of redesign but they should always be there, search boxes for example.
There might be instances when you feel that a certain feature may no longer necessary. But do your visitors feel the same way? Make sure you ask them before deciding to swipe away an element suddenly.
Maneet Puri is the managing director of LeXolution IT Services, a top notch web design firm India that provides seamless and effective web solutions and KPO services to its corporate clients. Over the ten years of his career in
the website design and development industry, he has completed many Indian website design projects for his clients world over.
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