Without a doubt the new site looks way better, Mike Kus does some amazing work. However, in the process I think a lot of things have happened here that probably

Without a doubt the new site looks way better, Mike Kus does some amazing work. However, in the process I think a lot of things have happened here that probably would lead to more user confusion or drops in conversion than the old design. Design is more than just making it pretty, its also making it usable and making it convert. A few specific examples... 1. I find the point about contrast in the article to be completely false. There is a more muted palette but I disagree that brown on black is higher contrast than red on white. 2. The mini-circles around the redeem button are just distracting from the primary call to action on that screen, do they do anything? Why would you trade the location name for buttons that don't do anything? http://o7.no/pwkxA9 http://o7.no/pwkxA9 [png] 3. The homepage no longer has a single clear call to action ("send a giftrocket"), if you increase the number of possible users paths on a page it will almost always lead to reduced conversion. Your homepage has 19 things I can click on above the fold. (For point of comparison Square and LivingSocial have 5, Groupon has 4). Does anyone give a GiftRocket by clicking on the categories and browsing?