In Focus

4 kick-ass website redesigns

Evolving with your audience

In some sense, every website is a work in progress. Nothing is set in stone, and frequent changes are a necessary part of doing business online. Sometimes those changes amount to more than rolling out a new product or feature. But whether it's about improving upon an existing idea or going in a different direction, a website redesign can be a daunting task for any brand. After all, a website is the first place consumers go to learn about your brand, and in a very real sense, your brand is only as good as its last redesign.

As your company's or client's target audience and goals change, it's important to make sure the online presence aligns with your vision, placing your best foot forward.

Here are some recent redesigns that caught our eye. Do you have others in mind that we should check out? Add them in the comments section on this article and tell us what you think the brand did well in re-envisioning its online presence.

 

Comments

Nadine Taylor
Nadine Taylor June 22, 2009 at 1:42 PM

Great article, Mr. Estrin! I agree that these 4 were kick ass redesigns...more modern, fresh, and interesting. Kudos to Nanette and the IMedia team for not throwing him under the bus for the cranky lady's comment, and "defending" the title. Which, I also agree represented the piece well, if not perfectly.

Silvia Pfeiffer
Silvia Pfeiffer June 12, 2009 at 5:34 AM

http://www.BooneOakley.com is amazing, because it takes the concept of a web page into a YouTube video. A bit annoying that you cannot go backwards, but then online video is still developing...

Pamela Hoke
Pamela Hoke June 11, 2009 at 8:33 AM

Alex H. is absolutely right! Enough with the fluff - new-age society sees right through this, and worse, it drains corporate capital. Where's the substance and meaning? Also, the SEO/source code being flash heavy means that the teams who built these sites did not combine recent SEO practices.that would really help their clients actually get results from $$ they soaked into the site re-designs. Not fiscally responsible, none attempting to embrace CSR models either.

Part of my big qualm with Comcast's ComcastTown campaign, for example - those millions the agency soaked up in creative were a complete waste: when the money could have been more responsilby utilized and leveraged in a CSR campaign - I don't know, perhaps give some free internet to folks struggling???? Internet services like that SHOULD be behaving like public utilities anyway. They all need to look at the times and hit reality if you ask me. Sorry, just not into the all "fluff" anymore - there are more concrete ways to leverage the internet.

Alex H
Alex H June 8, 2009 at 12:38 PM

Redesigned, but did not move forward. These are still the same flash heavy, poorly accessible, ad company animation fests. The American Standard site took a whole 5 seconds to load on a T1 connection. Let's stop applauding fluff and start recognizing substance.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/redesignrealign

Rob Neff
Rob Neff June 8, 2009 at 12:36 PM

On American Standard. Once more the web has been around 12 years and schools/companies are not teaching standards and guidelines.
1. Loads slow. Am on DSL and took over 20 seconds. U lost a customer.
2. Their objective was to provide a wealth of information on the home page. Yuppes, its there and takes too long to navigate and causes useability issues. Break it up and get them to where they want to be....and show ur goods!
3. tapping the green movement does not mean showing a green plant. That is where u wasted space and should have but all the green info and tools along the image's bottom
4. Those product overviews suck on the right. Too much information to read and if my cursor slips off, i have lost it. Bad UI design.
5. Also those hover boxes on the right have text taht cant be read by someone over 40. Doah! Hire a PM with usability experience or hire a UI designer.

Nanette Marcus
Nanette Marcus June 8, 2009 at 12:32 PM

Janet - Please note that the headline was not provided by the author. The iMedia editorial team chose that headline and feels that it represents the piece well. This is a great piece that lends itself to a headline that really grabs the attention of our readership, though we apologize if our overly casual and strong choice of wording was perceived as being offensive.

Please direct any feedback about it to iMedia editorial team, not the author.

Warm regards,
Nanette Marcus
Cover Stories Editor

masn masn
masn masn June 8, 2009 at 11:44 AM

Wow, Janet/David - pretty harsh for a Monday morning.

I applaud Michael for throwing a POV out there on a more-or-less mainstream industry site for you sharks and others to wrestle over. Janet, your attitude seems slightly below Michael's language on the class-meter. And by definition, if he got your attention, doesn't that make you an uneducated moron?

David - Agree. If there was any user testing or serious UX work, how they ended up with these approaches.

david evans
david evans June 8, 2009 at 11:26 AM

The American Standard site is plagued with over-art-directed menus on the right hand side... thus defying conventional left nav design and making logical next-click choices difficult. If I click again and the site doesn't screech to a halt from its continuous motion, I'm at the BACK button in an instant.
The Wolfgang Puck site is a Flash nightmare! Nothing ever stops moving, and nothing stays on screen long enough to read it. An utter travesty of juvenile art direction.
Ringling Bros. is the best of the three, but it would be improved by a "Skip Intro" button at least four times larger and ten times more prominent.
I'd be willing to bet a dollar that not one of these three expensive and critical sites as professionally user tested.

Janet Donaldson
Janet Donaldson June 8, 2009 at 8:54 AM

Hey, Michael, I sure don't expect to see "kick-**" trash in my in box in the morning.. Get a dictionary, learn the language, and learn to communicate like a respected and respectful professional, not like an idiot frat boy. If this is your idea of how to get attention in the world, you're right - if uneducated morons are your target audience. Show some class.