This is a direct hat tip and thank you to Scott Porad’s recent posts on killing the word “redesign” and the follow up. Here are the take home points from each:

There is no such thing as redesign; there is only adding new things and cleaning up things that already exist.  When you do lots of those activities your site might start to look as though it has a new design, but that’s something entirely different than a “redesign”.

It should be obvious, but it is not that our business tendencies are to build one system on another. This happens in every aspect of a business as new ideas, new laws or new people influence how something is done. Websites are the same. They have old and outdated code, they have fixes and patches for various problems, they have the nuances of individual programmers all over the place. A “redesign” is more another layer of complexity and added trouble.

How does this usually happen and what is that trouble. That is the next take home point:

1. The HiPPO: Big redesigns inevitably require reviews and approvals up the chain of command. …It’s all about The HiPPO—The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion—and usually that’s the opinion that holds the greatest influence, even if the person doesn’t know anything.

2. Collateral Damage: A big redesign typically means making all sorts of big moves and changes. The result is that all sorts of unnecessary little changes that happen to accommodate the big ones. Each of these changes is a door that leads to a little opportunity for someone to make a completely unnecessary change that is not even remotely based on user need.

Often good enough is good enough because the user, the person that counts the most, is reasonable satisfied, get the information or desired experience they need, and is returning because they want to. If you know what is driving your audience to your site and it works, look for incremental changes.

Exceptions Usually Prove the Rule

A *redesign in the original sense might be actually necessary if you are still doing the following, which really urk’s me.

• Are you a band with a super cool flash site but I can’t easily find your tour schedule and buy tickets because it takes me three full flash page loads on a crowded coffee shop wireless connection that takes 15min just to find out I am out of town the weekend you are in my city?
• Are you a small business and I can’t find the contact us page?
• Are you an event and the date/schedule and basic navigation is hard to find because it doesn’t appear on all pages?

Even these have easy incremental solutions. Put the tour schedule on your home page. Place you contact info in the footer or header. Place your festival dates in your logo/header. See, that was easy, cheaper and more effective.