A rocky start to a brighter future

Let's locate the crux of the problem. Why is a redesign necessary? If we want to find the crucial reasons behind users' and business' pain points, we should conduct research and analysis. We can choose between different methods depending on the time and budget we have. A redesign does not have to be costly, but we should carry it out while researching and verifying our needs.

What does the business have to say?

Let us begin by understanding what our expectations from the redesign are. Websites or apps are sorts of tools that allow for meeting goals and fulfilling business needs. An example of a need of this kind could be selling a product or an offer, the number of website views or the need to showcase your offer.

It is very important to set out the kinds of metrics we use for measuring effectiveness – sales of products and profit increase, website views and number of filled contact forms. While setting our main goals, we should answer questions about their nature and availability.

A broad analysis of our solution will come in handy here.

The foreground of this technological landscape consists of users. We need to get to know and understand them. Maybe we could acquire new ones? Or maybe the current ones need to understand our business offer better?

The next part would be our competition. Who are they? What are they successful at doing? It is helpful to consider how users react to our competition's business proposals.

The choice of an offer is ultimately up to the customer; this is why the concept of a Unique Value Proposition is essential in discussing these topics. Let's think for a bit – what was our plan to make our product stand out? What is it now? Can we do anything more, and – most importantly – can we achieve it thanks to our solution?

Unique Value Propositions are inextricably linked to content strategies and UX storytelling, mainly in the case of websites and landing pages. How do we put our offer forward? Are we emphasizing the UVP correctly? Are the Call to Actions prompts visible enough? This way, our business offer can be presented in various ways, utilizing different methods and content strategies.

Each of the depicted areas can be analyzed separately or as a whole, making up the full picture of a solution in need of redesigning. Workshops with UX Designers and other experts can be beneficial for the entire process.

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They allow for a quick evaluation of the best ways to refine our solution and, in turn, increase the chances of its success. Moreover, they show us how to plan and do it. Some of the discussed areas are the users and their paths, the competition and business analysis. These workshops can be especially significant in the case of elaborate, complex solutions.

What do the users have to say?

A major challenge is determining the usability of our product. If the users find navigating our solution problematic, that is on us, not them. Let us assume, for the sake of this article, that we own an online shop. A high number of users abandoning their carts is most likely the result of some problems with cart usage, payment methods etc. – not the customers' ill will. In this case, we need to examine the entire buying process.

Thanks to clever usage of fitting methods and tools, analyzing the usability should not be overly problematic.

While analyzing hard data, web analytics tools are invaluable. By using e.g. Google Analytics or Hotjar, we can check and understand the traffic on our website, the ways users behave, possible roadblocks and their places of occurrence. By examining channels, looking at how many users had left the page, the number of visits etc. we can gain a lot of insight into what needs to be changed or corrected. Naturally, web analytics tools will not be able to investigate all possible solutions, but it is an option worth looking into with many websites. If we cannot (or do not want to) use them, we should utilise other available usability tests.

A UX audit is a relatively inexpensive option. An expert review is a quality assurance process, inspecting a set of predefined solutions. In other words, a UX designer checks our product out, looks for crucial issues with the information architecture or interface, as well as helps us meet industry standards. The audit is based on the UX designer's experience, knowledge and awareness of various practices.

If time and money let us, it is always worth collecting users' feedback. By doing this, we can find out what they like about our current solution and what bothers them about it. These opinions can be gathered while conducting usability tests, during which users of our solution can help us create a list of problems that need to be addressed during the redesign process. Of course, there are plenty of ways to collect feedback, and they all depend on the amount of money we can dedicate to them.

We are almost there

We have conducted our research, collected feedback and checked all functionalities. Are we ready to start the redesign? Not quite yet. Remember that each redesign needs to solve the problems that were discovered. To make sure that we have carried out the whole process effectively, we should decide on new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). We should determine what would constitute an indicator of our redesign's success. Would it be more website views, new users, a specific conversion, or maybe a 50% uptick in sales?

Of course, having already gone through the analysis and research phase, let us name the main problematic areas. Each problem should have at least one proposed solution at this point. To decide on the route we should take, it is worth considering how much money and effort each of them would require. By giving priority to each area in need of change, we will make planning easier. Going back to our example with the online shop, when starting our redesign we should focus on the purchasing process, as it is the most important one for us, at least from the business and usefulness standpoint. Next, we can take care of the smaller things, like functionalities that set us apart from the competition. Look before you leap.

Time to get to work!

As we have put a lot of effort into our product up till this point, there is no reason to stop now – let's pull our weight around the design phase as well. A good place to start may be looking at lo-fi designs. It is a premise that lets us check our assumptions and choose the right one. If necessary, this step can be combined with UX storytelling in order to make it better.

Lo-fi designs should be interlaced with sessions dedicated to gathering opinions. We can ask our stakeholders or, better still, users themselves – as long as our budget allows for that. Only by having strong fundamentals can we proceed to hi-fi design. And even after we have done that transition, we should not forget to keep collecting feedback.

The aftermath

After presenting our new product to the wider world, we should keep one very important thing in mind. Some users' force of habit and unwillingness to change can lead to temporarily decreased satisfaction levels. We should not fret about it too much, though; it is a natural phenomenon. After the initial distrust and dissatisfaction, there will come acceptance and appreciation for our new design. Let the users get to know our solution once again.

Things to remember

1. Set clear goals you want to achieve through the redesign.
2. Analyze your product thoroughly. Take a look at your users and competition.
3. Verify your Unique Value Proposition.
4. Take a good look at your users' behaviour. Depending on the available budget and time: use web analysis, conduct UX audits, usability tests and interviews, or choose any of the many other testing methods
5. Make a list of problematic areas and prioritize them.
6. Choose metrics for gauging the redesign's success.
7. Make a prioritized list of designer tasks.
8. Create lo-fi designs and ask for opinions about them.
9. You can proceed to hi-fi designs. Gather opinions about their functionalities.
10. A redesigned solution should be ready to be presented to the world.