Before you get started with your website redesign plan, it is very important you evaluate your current website to identify potential flaws so that you can improve accordingly. Your current website design would obviously have certain strengths and certain weaknesses. While the strengths should be maintained at all costs, the weaknesses need to be dealt with and improvised on in the redesign process.
Thus the evaluation process is a very critical procedure that needs to be performed so that the website redesign project becomes a success. Here are some key points that you need to consider during the evaluation of the current website design.
Comparison to Competitors’ Websites
Websites belonging to specific industries tend to have certain similarities in their design and layout. Narrow down at least 5-6 of your most significant competitors and have a look at their websites. Also check out the websites of industry leaders. Look at the overall design of the website and analyze how your own website compares to them. Also, jot down the strong and weak points of all of them. The strong points will give you ideas for your website redesign while the weak points may help you to avoid the same mistakes to be employed on your own site.
Redesign or Complete Revamp
An important consideration to be made during the evaluation process is whether the current design could be kept intact with some minor changes here and there or does the website have to revamped completely and designed from the scratch.
Website design are strong portrayals of brand image of a company or business. Redesign a website can have a significant impact on the brand and further on repeat visitors who could fail to identify the new website. Thus it is advisable to keep the new redesigned look considerably close to the previous one rather than revamping it totally.
However, there are cases when a website design is so poor and incompetent that it needs to be totally stripped down and redesigned from the start. The evaluation process gives valuable insight into the same.
New Design Style
Website designing is a creative field and a professional website designer can create a plethora of designs for a website to enhance its visual appeal. However, the website design should effectively complement the prime objectives and contents of the website.
Another important consideration for the website design is the niche audience. The target audience of a website have certain preferences and requirements when it comes to your website design and you should be able to cater to them effectively. If you are designing a website for kids, you need to use lot of colors and graphic elements rather than monotonous tones. Likewise, while designing a company website you need to maintain a professional look and feel.
Strengths and Weaknesses of you Current Website
You need to have a direction for your website redesign process. And you can get this from your current website design. Take a close at your current design and examine what works and what does not. Identify points of strengths as well as weaknesses. Have a look at the website feedback and analyze the positive and the negative ones. Look for website areas where you can improve the usability or accessibility. Once you have a list of all these points you can go ahead with your redesign process.
