

The (Un?)Importance of Design - yoseph
http://blog.asmartbear.com/design-important.html

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CoffeeDregs
[FWIW, I'm a partner in a marketing/dev services firm and we do lots of this
re-design work. When a client asks us to use existing content and just re-
paint/organize it, we very clearly call it out as a "re-flow" so that no one
expects miracles...]

There is a huge difference between re-flowing content (as ASB seems to have
done) and re-designing/structuring a page (something we're working on with a
client right now). If you 're-design' a page and metrics don't change, you
know you re-flowed and that's sometimes exactly what you're trying to
accomplish (re-branding; increasing existing customer trust/happiness).

That said, we see lots of people on the marketing, dev and design sides of
businesses who, like ASB, don't seem to grok that design is about
communication and not about colors and shapes. This often leads to re-design
that doesn't communicate anything different or differently.

Increasing/optimizing conversion rate is rarely about the layout of content;
its usually about the content itself, the motivations produced by the content,
the avenues provided to users to engage with their new motivation _and_ the
flow/paint. Those who say otherwise are believe in green-button-FTW or think
users can be tricked into clicking.

Edit: restructured, expanded.

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CoffeeDregs
Tacky to reply to my own comment, but I wanted to add a quick point: as a
developer you'll notice that my comment is basically about refactoring... How
often do you see people kinda move bits of code, web pages, organizations, etc
around and then wonder why nothing really changed...

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tbgvi
I feel like prettying your site up should only be a minor consideration when
doing a redesign. You need to have clear goals, and some hypotheses on how to
reach those goals. It sounds like his hypothesis was "If I make the site nicer
looking, then more people will sign up and pay". By looking at the data he's
found that isn't the case.

There's still a lot of other stuff to test on a site, only some relates to how
it looks. Things like headlines and images/screenshots can have a huge impact.
A nice design gives you a good base to work from, but shouldn't be the end.
Throwing in the towel and saying "design must not matter" is the wrong way to
go.

For example... their new site has way too much text, not enough visuals.
Especially the features page. I would add some screenshots and try to use a
more descriptive headline. Instead of "Features" or "Gory details" I'd try
something like "We make WordPress run like a well oiled machine".

There's a Japanese word that represents the process perfectly, "kaizen".
Committing to continuous improvement will end up in results eventually, fancy
design or not. Design can definitely be part of the process, but it's not the
only thing to work on.

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zb
Sigh. Yet another otherwise-smart person who appears completely oblivious to
the distinction between design and "making stuff look pretty".

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webwright
Would you object if he said "visual design" instead of "design"?

It's pretty clear that's what he meant, so why quibble about definitions?
Jason certainly knows about A/B testing, usability, etc. This was a "coat of
paint" redesign, and he was surprised that it had no effect on the #s.

~~~
zb
Yes I would, because part way through he changes the definition to talk about
Hipmunk, then attempts to draw conclusions based on the pun.

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zefhous
The first thing I thought of when reading this was the following video: "Saul
Bass: On Making Money vs Quality Work"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfDCNpaPBiA>

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andrewflnr
He seems to miss the difference between the improvement of visual design
between versions of his site and the difference in usability design between
Hipmunk and it's competitors. That's an almost completely different issue.
It's no wonder he comes up with weird results.

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nchlswu
Design with out a goal or design with out a purpose is not design.

Design can mean so many things these days, it's hard to fault the author or
give him a hard time, but the remarks he makes at the end of the post are
worth reading. To succesfully utilize design, you need buy-in from throughout
the company. What I don't like about those remarks is his approach to design
that seems to say it's an all or nothing affair. Design is definitely not an
all or nothing endeavour, and you can easily incorporate good design
principals, without spending too much time or resources on it.

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Nat0
Design is fundamentally about solving a problem. In this case the problem was
that the product was ugly, not something more serious such as the design
hindering successful interactions with the product. People can deal with a
certain kind of "ugly" if it makes sense to them and works. This could help
explain the lack of a significant, immediate uptick in the provided metrics.

Also, even though the current design may look nicer, it may have also
introduced some new issues such as confusing users with all of the detailed
automotive illustrations.

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kyledr
As a counter example, twittermachine (or was it tweetingmachine) creator
posted a little while ago that a simple theme from theme forest increased his
conversions dramatically.

edit: <http://tweetingmachine.com>

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ChrisArchitect
the product/service will outshine the design if the idea is still conveyed (in
a pretty fashion or not).

