
I will make 100 redesigns because I'm sick of startups - snitko
http://romansnitko.posterous.com/i-will-make-100-redesigns-because-im-sick-of
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JangoSteve
_Have you ever wondered why every pornsite banner knows where you live, but no
airline website is smart enough to do that?_

I actually implemented automatic IP geolocation on RateMyStudentRental.com,
but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it.

You have people trying to search for rental housing near their school while
they're back home over break, and people searching for something across town
by campus while they're at work, etc. Even the people who were trying to
search for something nearby still _expected_ to have to enter in the address,
so they were completely thrown off, which is counter to the whole "Don't make
me think" mantra. And don't even get me started on the people searching behind
a corporate firewall, where the corporate headquarters (and IT dept) were
halfway across the US.

In the end, I had to remove the automatic IP geolocation. Perhaps this is
specific to my niche. Perhaps this feature is still ahead of the time (as the
porn industry often is). Either way, that's what happens when you must hold
your website changes accountable to actual metrics and results.

~~~
invisible
Perhaps the problem is more that you didn't present them with an option to
choose the auto-generated option. I think a graceful method would be to allow
them to enter a zip code, but have a radio that has the auto-generated option
as a choice. So they are presented with "Enter your location" which they
proceed to click the radio box. Presumably you could then save the location
they manually entered in via a cookie and present that as an option as well.

~~~
JangoSteve
Actually, I did have that option. The difference is that I had the auto
location by default with an option to enter it manually. Perhaps if I had
tried it the other way around, it would have worked better. But neither would
have really had any effect on the bottom line, so I didn't have the luxury of
spending more time to test it.

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cemregr
These redesigns are good, I have to say. I'm glad you focused on making them
more functional instead of prettier (that can't be said about most other
unsolicited redesigns).

But after all the discussion about Dustin's AA or Andrew's Zappos redesigns, I
don't know how the fact still didn't catch up, that creating the first mockup
isn't that big of a deal, and the real work can't be done not taking into
account any requirements or business goals :)

And unfortunately from a user's standpoint, a redesign is one of the worst
things that could happen to a site. Because however cramped and difficult a
site might be, there are people who use them daily, and changing the structure
completely overnight would abandon the most loyal users. That's why it's easy
for startups to come up with nice sites in 2010, they haven't had a website
since 1995 so they don't have the baggage of previous users.

So as much as a redesign, I'd appreciate not a complete overhaul but sort of a
compromise, that would improve usability without forcing old users to relearn
everything. A good alternative is having the old and new site co-exist for a
while, to get feedback on the new site as well, but not all companies
unfortunately have resources for that.

~~~
henrikschroder
No, the most loyal users won't abandon it. They will scream and curse and
complain and beg you to make it the way it was for about four weeks. After
that time, everyone will have forgotten what the old version looked like and
stop complaining.

Rinse, repeat, for every major redesign.

~~~
trafficlight
This hasn't been the case for the recent thesixtyone redesign. Hundreds of
dedicated users (users who actually spent money) and artists have left and are
more than likely never going back.

~~~
csmeder
I'm not sure if this will pan out to be true and anyways they did the opposite
of what this guy is doing. They took a usable site and made it unusable :)

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kaveri
It's a great idea in theory, the problem is that corporate designs go through
ten different committees each wanting something different, so you end up with
an unusable mess.

~~~
dmix
Exactly, the first design mockup is the easiest part of the process.

From my experience, getting feedback from a small team in 20 person startup
can drastically change the site from the designers original vision.

At the bigs companies there are many different stakeholders who need to be
appeased. Some of the changes may seem illogical to the average consumer, but
they might be well justified by management. For example trying to keep a few
big corporate clients happy by including a large cheesy marketing message on
the homepage.

Edit: But I admit, DHL is in desperate need for a redesign. Their website is
awful.

~~~
snitko
I absolutely agree that big companies would dramatically slow down the
development process. And that's why I put a disclaimer on each page saying it
takes consulting and understanding of the problem domain to produce a final
result. Mockup is definitely just a first step, but I figured it's the step
that attracts an attention.

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jcl
_Would it be cool if the AA site searched all airlines (like Kayak does)? Oh,
I would use that thing._

That's like saying "Wouldn't it be cool if Amazon displayed the prices of all
of its competitors (like PriceGrabber does)?" It's a conflict of interest.
Either the information is honest and helps competitors or it is dishonest and
of no benefit to consumers.

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joshwa
Design is not the problem.

I'd be much more curious to see "100 Business Redesigns" where you'd outline
how you'd revolutionize the mission, organizational culture, operations,
marketing, etc of a large public company.

You could title it "If I ran this place..."

Here, I'll start with NCR, just like the OP:

* Simplify pricing: For a given market, date, and vehicle class, here's the cost of the rental, regardless of what referral source you came through. Inventory is inventory.

* Publish all this data publicly, not just to those who pay for SABRE contracts

* Include a gas card (ala zipcar). (Pre-negotiate rates with the major gas station operators)

* Don't overbook. Have real-time inventory available at all times at all points of sale. (again see zipcar)

* Don't bombard me with cross-sells from your "partners". The only revenue you ever got from that is from people who forget to untick the box that charges them the extra $50. It just gets in the way of me completing the transaction with you.

~~~
joshwa
Organizational Theory question: How do you avoid, once becoming a larger
enterprise, this kind of "mission creep" where too many groups hold sway over
the public face and mission of a company?

The most common model I've seen thus far is the "single-minded-guy-at-the-top"
model: Apple, Zappos (any other good examples come to mind?). A relentless
voice to keep reminding people "what is our core business?" and ruthlessly
cull everything that isn't core, even if it contributes revenue.

I don't usually hear about JetBlue's CEO holding that kind of sway-- they seem
to have that culture organically. If I recall, Southwest _used_ to have that
kind of CEO, but he's retired, so the question remains of how to maintain that
kind of focus.

~~~
Silhouette
The problem with managing any large organisation is achieving some degree of
harmony between what the people with the vision and overall responsibility
want and what the people working five levels below them are actually doing.
Once you reach the point where no-one has non-trivial insight into everything
that is going on, this becomes very difficult, no matter how carefully you
plan your corporate communications and how sincere the management structure.

A common, and reasonable-sounding, approach to fixing problem areas is to
create some sort of "focus group" or "core team" (or bring in an external
consultancy) who can take the time to do what the rest of the staff can't do
without disrupting their regular jobs: go talk to people at all levels through
the organisation, gather the key points about what is happening and what the
staff feel about it, summarise what is _actually happening_ for management,
and possibly advise on how to improve the situation based on what has worked
elsewhere.

The difficulty with this approach is that in most organisations, there will be
a grass-roots resistance/resentment of any changes that such a working group
proposes, because people don't like to be told how to do their jobs, even if
they are doing them badly and don't necessarily realise it. You have to have
honest, full-on backing right down the management structure to pull this off,
and you need to get the "good" people on your side first so that when others
challenge the changes the people they know personally and respect will shape
their views. This is possible, but IME only if senior management are willing
to deal brutally with any middle management interference runners, which they
seldom are. (Edit: Also, anyone seconded to the working group needs to have
both an open mind themselves and the respect of the management team in
whatever part of the organisation they represent. Otherwise, they will just
disrupt the group, or they'll talk a lot and come up with good ideas to which
no-one will then listen.)

Those who get to run big businesses and have snazzy MBAs and such are supposed
to understand these issues and get them right, but it's sad how often they
don't.

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amix
Great idea and I am sure you'll learn a lot in the process. 37 Signals did
something similar back in the day (2001): <http://37signals.com/better>

~~~
spatulon
Let's not forget dcurtis's attempt to redesign the American Airlines website -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614703>

And the subsequent fallout from an AA employee opening his mouth -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=922913>

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lecha
Nice.

Consultants and Job Seekers take note: instead of telling people what you can
do for them, just start doing it.

This strategy to get hired is quite applicable to other professions.

~~~
smokinn
That doesn't set a very good precedent though. There's a reason designers
scorn "spec work".

~~~
ahoyhere
The likelihood that the targeted companies hire you afterwards is VERY low.
You basically just shat all over their baby.

On the other hand, other companies (who weren't shat on) will stand up and
take notice.

Spec work is only when it's by request, and the request came from people who
benefit from it (e.g. "show me how you'd do this before I pay you").

This isn't spec work, it's publicity-seeking. :)

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waivej
I really like the changes that you made and immediately wanted to see what you
would do with my website's design.

Though I stumbled when the "Have a tip which site should I redesign next?"
link took me to Twitter. I missed the "Hire Me" link in the top right for some
reason. (big screen made it way out in right field.)

Regardless, I bet you'll bring more business this way; maybe even from one of
your "targets". It's a really nice guerrilla marketing strategy.

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jacquesm
You should try to abstract your rules for these redesigns and make them in to
a best practices ruleset.

I like all three. Can I add you to my list of 'available' webdesigners ?

The biggest problem with these big corporate websites I think is that they
have no real incentive to think about the usability and general aesthetics of
their websites.

After all, we're just lousy customers, if the package was sent through DHL
we'll have to use their website.

If you want to fly KLM/North-West then you'll have to use their website, etc.

If they were _just_ competing on the web they'd be paying much more attention
to these details.

Another big problem is that usually there are 10 or 15 departments involved in
getting a big corporate website built, especially if they interface to
'legacy' systems.

Looking at this through the lens of a startup-minded person is not 100%
accurate. It is also a very good reason why running a start-up is much more
fun than working for one of these big corporations.

Before you would even get internal permission to do these mock-ups you'd be 6
months down the line, and during those 6 months the requirements would change
all the time.

~~~
adamc
The real problem is that big companies are structured into hierarchies, and
getting a big change (like a site redesign) often requires simultaneously
developing support through several branches of the company tree. At each
level, management feels an obligation to make their opinions felt, and the
result is endless compromise. For some things, this works well, but it is a
very risk-averse process, so it is hard to make dramatic improvements. So big
companies buy little companies (and often ruin them, but that's another
discussion).

The problem isn't necessarily that big companies have incapable web designers,
but rather that the influence of even the most capable is quite limited. It
seems to be a fundamental problem with large organizations.

~~~
henrikschroder
I once worked for a large company I shall not name, where ultimately the
decision on which colour to make the menu on the website ended up being taken
by the CEO.

(He picked blue)

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snitko
One thing I forgot to mention in the post: I chose National Car Rental website
for a redesign, because I've been watching The Daily Show online every day
with NCR ads. I was so fed up with it, that I felt I had to do something about
it to release the pain.

~~~
eagleal
The Where and When step it's absolutely awesome. I really like it, the very
essential of the task.

I know it's just a sketch you did for fun, read the disclaimer in the page,
but: The Main navigation menu, the tips (ads ?) in the left, and the
successive steps however can be optimized. Eg: Enter personal information (Mr.
Stewart ... It's not needed when the user (mr Stewart) is logged in.

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synnik
Seeing redesigns is an interesting exercise. But I don't see it being much
more than that.

The author asked why companies have not done this. Believe me, 9 times out of
10, if it would increase their income, they would have. The fact that they
have not done so means that there are either business reasons to leave it as-
is, or simply other projects that will have a greater impact on the business,
and therefore a redesign is of low priority.

I've said this before -- just becase we care about web startups, that does not
make every company into a web startup. Having a good web design does not
always have a material impact on the bottom line of a business.

~~~
marciovm123
That's a valid point for businesses in general. However, for customer facing
businesses like DHL or AA that depend on their websites for a large part of
their customer interaction, caring a lot about your website would seem to be
pretty important.

I haven't worked in that situation before, but what is likely happening is
that the managers in these large orgs are 50+, didn't grow up with the
internet, and don't fully appreciate things like the importance of awesome
design in your front page.

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johns
Interesting concept if you can sustain it. I would pay special attention to
detail though. The DHL redesign has a pretty glaring typo in it. You don't
want to appear lazy if you're trying to generate work from the mockups.

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raheemm
The National Car Rental redesign is great. Gets to the essence of the service
and makes it so easy - you are good!

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mattmaroon
I love the hubris. "there are plenty of reasons, from lack of understanding of
the profits that a good website eventually brings". Yes, the multi-billion
dollar corporation has less of an idea what a more usable website would do to
their bottom line, than some random guy with a posterous account.

~~~
johngalt
Any large team ends up as an average of it's members. So all you have to do is
be above that average. There is no large company in the world that meets with
a web designer and says "Do what you think is right, you're the expert."

Its similar with internal IT. Invariably they have to answer to people that
have no tech background/knowledge, and those same people will not allow the IT
dept to make decisions independently. Large organizations guarantee suboptimal
results in this manner.

You see the hubris is even more prevalent in the big corporations.

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tcarnell
Keep notified of the latest designs - Public Femtoo Tracker available:

<http://femtoo.com/index.php?action=TrackerLibraryLoad>

(snitko - you can create your own Femtoo Tracker and add a 'Track this page'
button to the site to keep people updated...)

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volida
The colors are better on the originals. Much brighter.

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vinhboy
Nice job. You should do it on government websites.

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jasonmcalacanis
This is a great idea.

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DXL
The redesigns look great, way to go ;)

If this gains a little traction, you might find your inbox full of requests
for your services. (Edit: I missed the dark gray bar at the top of the page
and now see that you're aiming for that. Good luck!)

