Changing Your Design Could Hurt You
This is a topic I’ve thought long and hard about over the last few months. I’ve currently got three sites I’m working on, hence my lack of posting (I’m sure you’ve noticed), but once these sites are live, I’m planning a major overhaul of Random Jabber. Random Jabber has been online now for going on a year and to be honest, I’m just tired of looking at this design. The only thing that has crossed my mind is the possibility of creating a new design that many of the readers are not fond of, because even though the design isn’t everything, I think it does account for when talking about the success of a site. If I’m going through with a redesign, I definitely want something people will enjoy and is a reflection on my design skills.
One Voice Inside My Head Says Leave It Alone
I’ve been told on a numerous occasions from different people that they like my blog design, so from that standpoint, one part of me just wants to leave it alone. If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it, right? The other part of me realizes that my design isn’t broken, but I also realize that it could be so much better.
Here’s what I’ll definitely be changing:
- MyBlogLog is out. I’ll keep the service so I can check in from time to time, but I’ll no longer display the images on the site. The more I look at it, the more I just don’t like it.
- Amazon affiliate links in the footer will be out. They just don’t seem very professional and they aren’t making me any money anyway. Of course the money part could be because they are in the lowest part of the site.
- No more smilies. The more I look at these little things, the more they annoy me and they just don’t look professional.
- I’ll more than likely go with some sort of two column layout for the new design. I think the current three column layout is a little crowded?
- I’m considering moving my “Random Sites to Check Out” section in the footer to it’s own page. I’ve seen a couple other sites listing their blogroll in this fashion and I like it.
First Impressions are Everything
Not only do you have to think about your current readers when redesigning, but you have to think about the people who have yet to visit your site. Before new visitors read anything on your site, they see your design. Your content could be golden, but if your design is bad, chances are that no one will stick around long enough to read your content.
I Guess That’s a Chance You Take
Any time you redesign your site, you take a chance that someone may not like it. Sometimes, it may not be that they dislike the new design, but it’s more that they were so used to your previous design that they cannot allow themselves to get used to the new. A site that comes to mind that recently faced this situation is Pro Blogger. Darren had the old design for so long, that people just associated that design with him. There was nothing wrong with the new design that Ben developed and I actually liked what Ben came up with, but I read numerous comments where people were wondering what Darren was thinking, changing something that was effective and that so many people recognized.
You Cannot Please Everyone
Going through a successful design change is possible although it may give a few readers shell shock initially while they get used to the new lay of the land. You just have to keep in mind that you will never please everyone and people will say what they’re going to say. That’s life, right? Of course, with seemingly everyone subscribing through RSS these days and that number growing rapidly, design is having less and less of an impact on success every day.
What Say You?
Hopefully I’ve given someone out there reading some things to think about when doing a redesign themselves. I’m sure some more things will pop in my head once I get closer to actually laying out the new site, but for right now, these are just some things that rolled off the tip of my tongue.
Are you thinking about a redesign? Did you just complete a redesign? What it a success, or did it bomb? Share your story in the comments below.
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Comments
It sounds to me like your struggling with deciding if you want to redesign or realign, a dilemma that I too have wrestled with many a time.
This article on A List Apart may help:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/redesignrealign/
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008
I’m always thinking about a redesign - the curse of being a graphic designer. Still, time doesn’t allow at the minute, so I’m happy to continue.
Good move with the MyBlogLog images, although yours was a very nice implementation of the widget.
Smilies are something I want to remove too, but I’m not sure how. Can you help? I’m guessing it’s the deletion of a line of code.
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008
A redesign is always a risk, but not redesigning is also a risk. Every day, you make the choice of whether or not you will change something, and the downsides of not making a change can be much worse than making a bad change. 
And even if things do go wrong, you can always revert back to the original (Which reminds me that I still need to sort out a part of my sidebar… xD )
As for the smilies, you can disable them in the Options section of your admin panel.
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008
Michael,
Thanks for the smiley tip. I knew it’d be easy!
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008
Sam: Yeah, good points. That’s just the designer in us all I guess. We all want to fix our designs even though they are fine. Yeah, it’s really a hard decision as far as going forward with my new sites or a redesign of my blog. I’m inclined to think the new three sites will bring the most return, but I also don’t want to just blow off my blog for the next six months while I develop the new sites. Ahh, decisions, decisions!
James: That’s a really good article. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before! I definitely think I have aspects of both redesigner and realigner. As a matter of fact, RJ already has had a “realign” a couple months after launch. I think I’ve just got to much to realign right now and it would be more difficult than simply redesigning. I’ve got a lot of messy code I want to address and some areas of the site that at the time I thought were put together pretty well, but in the last year I’ve learned some new tricks, so I want to change those changes too.
David: I see that Michael has already given you a heads up on the smilies (thanks Michael). I probably wouldn’t have been able to help anyway as I use ExpressionEngine and I believe you still use WordPress? Or did you make the transition to a superior product like EE (just kidding) 
?
Michael: First off, I have to apologize to you. I’m sure you noticed that I linked to Pro Blog Design in the article. I’m sure you were thinking “what’s this guy talking about?” as you were reading. I guess it’s a case of being in the “typing zone?” because I totally meant to reference ProBlogger and not ProBlogDesign.
As for your comments, good points. True that not making a change could be as bad or worse than making a bad change. I’ve got a lot of brainstorming too do!
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008
Hello Deron,
It nothing bad in redesigning the blog.
But the only thing that need to be kept in mind that content should not be affect.
Because how much you would like to make the design attractive there will become more use of images and flash, that crawler does not follow.
I don’t think, it is good thing to redesign website or blog again and again.
Posted on Thu Mar 27, 2008
John: Yeah, it may not be the best thing to keep redesigning your blog every six months or so, but I think after a couple years unless you just have an extremely original design, it just need some touch ups. Maybe not a whole redesign, but a realign where you just improve on what you’ve already got. I think after a year or two, a design just becomes dated because styles have changed. But it’s definitely true that if people are familiar with your design, changing it could have adverse effects.
Posted on Thu Mar 27, 2008
Deron - I just set a new design live on one of my sites, and for three days it had no sales! Started to get worried, then I got 4 sales overnight so I’m a bit less worried now.
The old design was very 2004, the new design is more modern. I think that I should maybe have done a halfway house first, but, you live and learn.
Posted on Wed Apr 9, 2008
Gary: Thanks for stopping by! Sometimes is a hard decision to design especially when the current one is working fine. Your redesign my not be bad at all but possibly your frequent visitors just had shell shock seeing the new design after being used to the old design?
Good luck with your sites.
Posted on Thu Apr 10, 2008
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Hey Deron, if you feel an urge to “fix” your blog’s design, that doesn’t mean the design is broken: a designer is someone who fixes things that aren’t necessary broken. That’s the joy and neurosis of Web design.
It’s really a question of time management. What would give you the most return on investment: remaking your blog’s design, or launching some other site? It’s a good question and one that requires calculation and patience to answer.
Personally, I think RJ’s design is very strong and it gives a good first impression. If I had to summarize the impression RJ gives, it would be “I have good taste.” That said, it’s also healthy to challenge yourself to even greater heights… especially in our field when new techniques and technologies extend the possibilities on a weekly basis.
Posted on Fri Feb 29, 2008