Avoiding the edge in redesign

Elyse Sanchez, Wednesday, April 11, 2007 @ 10:16 am

Commenting on the debut of a recently redesigned metropolitan newspaper, blogger Steve Rhodes articulated a concern that certainly must strike a chord with many IAs:

. . .[T]he real problem is one that every redesign faces - that old lipstick on a pig thing. Unfortunately, nobody wants to improve the pig. It's not that hard to understand. Campbell's can change the label all they want, but if their soup still sucks, their soup still sucks. . .Redesigns always work around the edges.

My work at Pathfinder has been about evenly divided between working on new products and redesigns of existing sites and applications. The differences are considerable, both on the project level and in my individual approach and the tasks and challenges I face. Most clients seem to be under the impression that revising an existing product is a lesser undertaking: after all, they’ve got something built that hasn’t yet crumbled and collapsed. In discovery meetings, I’ve too often heard stakeholders say that “all we really needs is a facelift.” In other words, put some lipstick on this pig—slap a little look and feel on the GUI, maybe reposition a few buttons, and success is inevitable.

What they don’t realize is that bling therapy alone will probably damage the user experience more than it helps. Visual design is not simply creating concepts in Photoshop for the client to cherry-pick (“Oh, I like the navigation on Concept 1 with the color palette on Concept 3. Could you combine them?”). Visual design is as integral to usability as a solid, defensible, well-conceived architecture and flow: the two disciplines complement and strengthen each other. Invariably, an analysis of visual redesign brings deeper structural issues to the surface.

Fortunately, most clients understand—or can be persuaded—that a paint job, however skillful or artfully applied, does not in itself lead to a considerable improvement in usability. But colors and visual concepts are things that everyone can have an opinion on, and the appearance of a product makes the initial, most powerful impression to the stakeholders--especially the marketing department. It’s somewhat more of a challenge for us to engage them in taskflows and wireframes, but some of the most rewarding projects I’ve participated in were in the cases where the clients became true collaborators in the entire process. Understanding what makes their product or site better for users brings them closer to their audience and more sensitive to their needs. Ideally, everything we design should look good and work well, but if it doesn't work well, it really can't look good.

user experience design

Comments

• Leave a comment
• Comment feed for this post
• TrackBack URL

None so far.

Leave a comment