5 ms·

I will make 100 redesigns because I'm sick of startups

111 points by snitko 17y ago

kaveri 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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.
  - wglb 17y ago
    And it is interesting how different, huge, departments own various pieces of the web page--menu bar, right margin, left links, and so on. And fight for changes of any sort to their piece of real estate.
- olegkikin 17y ago
  This. Plus people making UI decisions rarely have any experience in it. Yet they feel like they know everything.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  The process is described in vivid detail in the following comic by The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell - How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell
DXL 17y ago
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!)
amix 17y ago
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 http://37signals.com/better
- simonw 17y ago
  I thought of that too - it's still one of my favourite 37 Signals projects, hadn't realised it was nearly a decade ago.
- spatulon 17y ago
  Let's not forget dcurtis's attempt to redesign the American Airlines website - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614703 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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=922913
raheemm 17y ago
The National Car Rental redesign is great. Gets to the essence of the service and makes it so easy - you are good!
snitko 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
jacquesm 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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)
johns 17y ago
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.
JangoSteve 17y ago
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.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it. counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra The problem is that confusing people forces them to think so you're actually making it harder for them to do what they need done. Honestly I have never seen a site where geolocation was useful. I guess if I were in a location where I didn't know the zip code, or street address, or street name it would be useful if I were looking for, e.g., a good restaurant. But in that situation, I wouldn't be using the internet, I'd just ask someone.
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  You are exactly right, and I image that this is true for most sites. For example, I do not want a car rental site to geolocate me! I seldom search for car rentals where I live, but often search for rentals at various destinations.
- Super_Jambo 17y ago
  Why not give them an option to select a location but use their IP to generate a useful default?
jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
This is a great idea.
vinhboy 17y ago
Nice job. You should do it on government websites.
joshwa 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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.
lecha 17y ago
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 17y ago
  That doesn't set a very good precedent though. There's a reason designers scorn "spec work".
  - ahoyhere 17y ago
    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. :)
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
waivej 17y ago
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.
cemregr 17y ago
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.
- oscardelben 17y ago
  > 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 we should never redesign and make a website more functional because old users might not use it?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - JangoSteve 17y ago
    I know you're asking that question to point out what you consider to be obvious, but actually I would say the answer to the question is more "yes" than "no". A redesign in this case may help get new users, but it's much easier (and more cost-effective) to retain existing customers than to gain new customers. So, if your change upsets existing users on any meaningful scale, then it's probably not a good idea. I'm not saying to never redesign. I'm saying that you should redesign iteratively and in small steps, so that both existing and new users benefit. You never want to attempt gaining new users at the expense of existing users.
jcl 17y ago
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.
tcarnell 17y ago
Keep notified of the latest designs - Public Femtoo Tracker available: http://femtoo.com/index.php?action=TrackerLibraryLoad 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...)
mattmaroon 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
synnik 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
- ahoyhere 17y ago
  > 9 times out of 10, if it would increase their income, they would have If you've ever worked on a design project inside a big company, you'd know that's simply untrue. Big companies are not actually streamlined profit machines, they're streamlined ego-perpetuating machines. Which is why you have the 10-committee problem, the 50-stakeholder problem, and "Marketing" owns the sidebar and news area of the site, while Copywriting owns only the front page and About Our Company pages, and Operations and/or the Boss' Secretary owns everything else... It's inefficient as hell to have 10+ people in a design meeting, for example. Wastes profits by the boatload. Committees do not create profits, they just increase the wastefulness of most meetings. And so on, so forth -- the good news is, as a consultant, they were wasting my time at $300+ an hour.[1] As long as I was content to sit there and do nothing but count my money in my head, it was a great gig. I remember one client that paid us quite a lot of money for research and initial redesigns, but in the end, the CEO got talked out of approving our $60k budget. Because Marketing was afraid it would cut into their budget -- which was $300k/mo. Keep in mind: This particularly company's whole business was delivering a web video experience. 12 mos later, they went from several hundred employees to about 60. Last I heard (months after that), they're down to 20. What a surprise. This problem doesn't exist only at startups, though. I've worked with a lot of big name companies you'd recognize, and almost everywhere it's the same. [1] The great thing about being a consultant to big biz is that your rates don't matter. Occasionally a client will initially balk when you throw out $300, $400, whatever per hour -- but it's usually them 'playing poker' with what they are willing to pay. The fact of the matter is, when they overstuff meetings (which they all habitually do), they are wasting $1000s per hour of their own employee time.
meilin 17y ago
www.kicksaike1.com sells Nike Air Force 1, http://www.kicksnike1.com/ http://www.kicksnike1.com/, Top quality Nike Air force ones and http://www.kicksnike1.com/ http://www.kicksnike1.com/, Nike Air Force 1 special!
volida 17y ago
The colors are better on the originals. Much brighter.

111 points by snitko 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
- wglb 17y ago
  And it is interesting how different, huge, departments own various pieces of the web page--menu bar, right margin, left links, and so on. And fight for changes of any sort to their piece of real estate.
olegkikin 17y ago
This. Plus people making UI decisions rarely have any experience in it. Yet they feel like they know everything.
NathanKP 17y ago
The process is described in vivid detail in the following comic by The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell - How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell

DXL 17y ago

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!)

amix 17y ago

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 http://37signals.com/better

simonw 17y ago
I thought of that too - it's still one of my favourite 37 Signals projects, hadn't realised it was nearly a decade ago.
spatulon 17y ago
Let's not forget dcurtis's attempt to redesign the American Airlines website - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614703 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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=922913

raheemm 17y ago

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

snitko 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.

jacquesm 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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)

johns 17y ago

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.

JangoSteve 17y ago

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.

HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it. counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra The problem is that confusing people forces them to think so you're actually making it harder for them to do what they need done. Honestly I have never seen a site where geolocation was useful. I guess if I were in a location where I didn't know the zip code, or street address, or street name it would be useful if I were looking for, e.g., a good restaurant. But in that situation, I wouldn't be using the internet, I'd just ask someone.
maukdaddy 17y ago
You are exactly right, and I image that this is true for most sites. For example, I do not want a car rental site to geolocate me! I seldom search for car rentals where I live, but often search for rentals at various destinations.
Super_Jambo 17y ago
Why not give them an option to select a location but use their IP to generate a useful default?

jasonmcalacanis 17y ago

This is a great idea.

vinhboy 17y ago

Nice job. You should do it on government websites.

joshwa 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.

lecha 17y ago

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 17y ago
That doesn't set a very good precedent though. There's a reason designers scorn "spec work".
- ahoyhere 17y ago
  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. :)

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

waivej 17y ago

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.

cemregr 17y ago

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.

oscardelben 17y ago
> 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 we should never redesign and make a website more functional because old users might not use it?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- JangoSteve 17y ago
  I know you're asking that question to point out what you consider to be obvious, but actually I would say the answer to the question is more "yes" than "no". A redesign in this case may help get new users, but it's much easier (and more cost-effective) to retain existing customers than to gain new customers. So, if your change upsets existing users on any meaningful scale, then it's probably not a good idea. I'm not saying to never redesign. I'm saying that you should redesign iteratively and in small steps, so that both existing and new users benefit. You never want to attempt gaining new users at the expense of existing users.

jcl 17y ago

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.

tcarnell 17y ago

Keep notified of the latest designs - Public Femtoo Tracker available: http://femtoo.com/index.php?action=TrackerLibraryLoad 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...)

mattmaroon 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.

synnik 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.
ahoyhere 17y ago
> 9 times out of 10, if it would increase their income, they would have If you've ever worked on a design project inside a big company, you'd know that's simply untrue. Big companies are not actually streamlined profit machines, they're streamlined ego-perpetuating machines. Which is why you have the 10-committee problem, the 50-stakeholder problem, and "Marketing" owns the sidebar and news area of the site, while Copywriting owns only the front page and About Our Company pages, and Operations and/or the Boss' Secretary owns everything else... It's inefficient as hell to have 10+ people in a design meeting, for example. Wastes profits by the boatload. Committees do not create profits, they just increase the wastefulness of most meetings. And so on, so forth -- the good news is, as a consultant, they were wasting my time at $300+ an hour.[1] As long as I was content to sit there and do nothing but count my money in my head, it was a great gig. I remember one client that paid us quite a lot of money for research and initial redesigns, but in the end, the CEO got talked out of approving our $60k budget. Because Marketing was afraid it would cut into their budget -- which was $300k/mo. Keep in mind: This particularly company's whole business was delivering a web video experience. 12 mos later, they went from several hundred employees to about 60. Last I heard (months after that), they're down to 20. What a surprise. This problem doesn't exist only at startups, though. I've worked with a lot of big name companies you'd recognize, and almost everywhere it's the same. [1] The great thing about being a consultant to big biz is that your rates don't matter. Occasionally a client will initially balk when you throw out $300, $400, whatever per hour -- but it's usually them 'playing poker' with what they are willing to pay. The fact of the matter is, when they overstuff meetings (which they all habitually do), they are wasting $1000s per hour of their own employee time.

meilin 17y ago

www.kicksaike1.com sells Nike Air Force 1, http://www.kicksnike1.com/ http://www.kicksnike1.com/, Top quality Nike Air force ones and http://www.kicksnike1.com/ http://www.kicksnike1.com/, Nike Air Force 1 special!

volida 17y ago

The colors are better on the originals. Much brighter.