Whether it's your website, your visual identity or your logo, a redesign consists of a refresh.

It is not uncommon for a brand's graphic or communication elements to degrade over time and need to be reworked or even started from scratch to create something that is more up to date, both in terms of trends than communication codes or changes in formats (screens, banners, etc.).

When we talk about redesigning a website (such as redesigning a showcase site, ecommerce site or even redesigning an institutional site), we will generally modify the existing one in depth, for example:

• review the navigation and experience used on the website

• adapt the graphical interface to the taste of the day

• maybe add features that had not been imagined when creating the last existing version of the website

It is important to study what works and what does not work on the existing site.

For this, you can base yourself on the feedback from visitors to your site, on navigation data (via for example Matomo or Google Analytics) or even have an audit of your site carried out which will reveal the flaws in your site and in which identify areas for improvement that can be addressed by redesigning the website.

There are many reasons why you may want a redesign of your website or an application, this may be the case for example:

• improve SEO: this involves reworking the SEO of the website by working in particular on technical SEO (for example by reducing the loading time of the pages of the site, by working on responsiveness and ergonomics, by updating the sitemap.xml file ...) or on the on-page SEO where we will generally work on the content. For example, we can add a blog section, which will allow the showcase site to offer quality content to its visitors and to Google to better reference the site.

• reduce the technical debt of the product: it is not uncommon for applications or sites to be developed in a framework that does not provide all the quality necessary for maintainability of the source code. This is the case, for example, when a product must be developed within very tight deadlines or by inexperienced teams due to a tight budget. In this case, it may be interesting to redesign a site or an application by refactoring all or part of the source code and/or the cloud architecture. This may be an opportunity to rework the digital product to improve its performance or correct design flaws.

• increase its conversion rate: when a site or an application has not sufficiently put users at the center of the reflection during the design process, it can happen that the conversion rate is low. The redesign will then aim to better take into account usage statistics and user feedback to improve the conversion of the website, web or mobile application...

• modernize the design: trends and practices evolve in design, and it is important not to present to its customers or prospects a site or an app that is totally outdated. A redesign will review the ergonomics and design to provide an improved and more in tune user experience, which should help you convert your users more easily.

• add features: a lean startup work methodology allows you to derisk your project by launching an MVP on which the iterations will be progressive and dictated by your users. By using this approach, you will therefore regularly have to redesign your product to add functionalities such as the creation of user accounts, the addition of a chatbot or the possibility of administering all the content of your site or web application.

• optimize the operating expenses of its site or application: this will involve auditing the cloud architecture put in place and optimizing it to reduce the related costs.

This question is closely related to the reasons for doing a redesign and that we saw a little above.

We will thus redesign our site or application at least when necessary:

• if the source code on which it is based is of too poor quality

• if the design of the product is outdated and harms the image of your company or brand

• if the number of visits to your site is continuously declining, in which case you should review your SEO strategy

• if your conversion rate is low compared to your competitors or your bounce rate is high

• if your site no longer meets current standards, whether it is the regulations in force (GDPR for example), security vulnerabilities requiring updates, formats on which it should be available (mobile, tablet. ..) or even incompatibilities with new versions of web browsers

Having to rework your site or application does not necessarily mean starting from scratch even if it will sometimes be more practical, even more economical.

Do you want to redesign your graphic identity, redesign your website, refresh your web or mobile application or optimize your cloud architecture?

Email us at partners@blacksmith.studio!