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I'm surprised by a lot of the response to this post for a couple of reasons. First, and very simply, the existing Exec design is conspicuously weak and unprofe

I'm surprised by a lot of the response to this post for a couple of reasons. First, and very simply, the existing Exec design is conspicuously weak and unprofessional. It looks copy+pasted from a million other sites, but without anyone with a good eye to look it over and pull the disparate copied elements together. For all the negative feedback, there should be more acknowledgment that Kyro's decision does a far better job aesthetically and in terms of polish than what exists now. Second, when did marketing and design become conflated? Most of the criticism is about the approach the designer has taken to writing marketing copy and otherwise persuading people to sign up. Is that really the role of a designer? Maybe it is these days, but I think that means the role has now become a hybrid of two pretty unrelated disciplines. A great designer takes a sense of experience and branding and translates it into abstraction: color, form, rhythm, etc. Kyro has done a good job of this. The design, text aside, reads as high-end, serious, appealing to professionals, and most importantly like a solid company that is trustworthy and can deliver on its promises. A great copywriter or marketer is doing a totally different thing, trying to persuade people and get them to convert. From knowing some people who are pretty good at both things, I'm not convinced that these two roles should be turned into one. I think this is a vast improvement on design before I even analyze whether or not its a marketing copy improvement.

nchlswu 15y ago
From a strictly visual standpoint, I can agree with your assessment. But a good /design/ needs to consider the copywriting and marketing standpoint and the larger picture as a whole. Design in itself is not restricted to the visual. Design as a whole is uniquely goal related. Almost all the time, it involves more than the work of just a visual designer. With respect to OP, I think it's fairly clear he took the role of a visual designer in his work and should be criticized more on that aspect. But in the larger picture, I think a good designer (of any capacity) should be able to at least consider the marketing and copywriting goals. While these roles should not be merged into one - there's a role for someone who can consider all these to coordinate these unique needs. I personally feel that a designer who has an understanding of business needs is better suited for this goal than the alternative (that's not to say its a necessity for all designers)
minus1 15y ago
Design is something almost everyone feels qualified to criticize, so a post like this lends itself to all kinds of bikeshedding. Fortunately, we live in the age of A/B testing. Rather than listening to any of the speculation in this thread, the thoughtful businessperson can actually quantify just how good or bad a design is at achieving its goal.
- tptacek 15y ago
  By your logic, isn't this post itself an instance of bikeshedding?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - malandrew 15y ago
    If by 'post' you are talking about kyro's post, no it isn't bikeshedding because the concept of bike shedding is based on C. Northcote Parkinson's original observation on discussions involving trivial subject matter. Kyro, as a professional designer with lots of experience and domain expertise who also did a complete visual redesign as a critique, would be analogous to those discussing the finer points of building a nuclear reactor in Parkinson's original argument, and not those discussing the color of the bike shed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality
justjimmy 15y ago
Without a brief and without data, the designer here is clearly only improving the visual aspect of the website of it (the redesign 1 page and is in image format is a big clue). Which is something alot of the other commenters just don't get it. It's visually appealing, professional and a vast improvement over the current site. Critiquing anything else beyond that is moot. When someone start expecting a designer to do copy writing, AB testing, marketing, then they will also expect them to code in HTML, CSS, JS, and before you know it, they're the classical example of those looking for unicorn designers. Even some of the design critiques here are perfect candidates for clientsfromhell.com ie: "Make the gold golder."
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "Critiquing anything else beyond that is moot." The goal of good design is to communicate the values and value proposition of the site. Any website should look professional and visually appealing, but the fact that a website is professional or visually appealing tells you nothing about whether or not the site is actually well designed.
  - justjimmy 15y ago
    Can you critique anything beyond the visual aspect based on that single static image? You can't because there's no data, no testing done, no brief - no context. Meaningful feedback and constructive critique could be provided if the site was live, if we can see some hard numbers or we can do some user case studies as they use the site.
tptacek 15y ago
I totally do not concede the point that IAMEXEC.COM looks conspicuously weak and unprofessional. Exec's site looks better than Angie's List, for instance, which looks like a 2008 Themeforest template but still manages to engage normal people just fine. The bar for web design excellence on HN is way out of whack for what the bar actually is in the real world. This matters because I think lots of people talk themselves out of launching out of concern that some web design enthusiast is going to come out of the woodwork and accuse them of being "conspicuously unprofessional". Trust me: people have driven a shitload of business through sites that I'm sure would make you throw up in your mouth.
- ForrestN 15y ago
  The fact that there exist weak and unprofessional sites representing successful companies is not a counterargument against my evaluation of Exec's design. I never claimed that Exec was doomed to fail, or even that they imperatively need a redesign. I didn't make any kind of point about how much impact visual design has on a business's success. My point was about the relationship between two designs: the original Exec design and the "facelift." The facelift is much more professional, and looks much less thrown-together. To add some context, too, I'm not "coming out of the woodwork" to criticize the company. I was responding to what seemed like a lot of misplaced negativity about the facelift. I think it's definitely possible for a company to do very well without a well-designed website. But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?
  - tptacek 15y ago
    If you had said their design was "weak", I wouldn't have a strong argument. You said their design was "unprofessional". Strong disagree, and disagreement worth having: people here are too hung up on unreasonable standards of "professionalism". "Professional" is a best practices standard. It very much depends on context. Angie's List is a giant site in Exec's space. Exec's launch website is to my eyes totally professional, cleaner and better written than Angie's List. What, exactly, do you think is more professional about the redesign?
    - 15y ago

nchlswu 15y ago

From a strictly visual standpoint, I can agree with your assessment. But a good /design/ needs to consider the copywriting and marketing standpoint and the larger picture as a whole. Design in itself is not restricted to the visual. Design as a whole is uniquely goal related. Almost all the time, it involves more than the work of just a visual designer. With respect to OP, I think it's fairly clear he took the role of a visual designer in his work and should be criticized more on that aspect. But in the larger picture, I think a good designer (of any capacity) should be able to at least consider the marketing and copywriting goals. While these roles should not be merged into one - there's a role for someone who can consider all these to coordinate these unique needs. I personally feel that a designer who has an understanding of business needs is better suited for this goal than the alternative (that's not to say its a necessity for all designers)

minus1 15y ago

Design is something almost everyone feels qualified to criticize, so a post like this lends itself to all kinds of bikeshedding. Fortunately, we live in the age of A/B testing. Rather than listening to any of the speculation in this thread, the thoughtful businessperson can actually quantify just how good or bad a design is at achieving its goal.

tptacek 15y ago
By your logic, isn't this post itself an instance of bikeshedding?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- malandrew 15y ago
  If by 'post' you are talking about kyro's post, no it isn't bikeshedding because the concept of bike shedding is based on C. Northcote Parkinson's original observation on discussions involving trivial subject matter. Kyro, as a professional designer with lots of experience and domain expertise who also did a complete visual redesign as a critique, would be analogous to those discussing the finer points of building a nuclear reactor in Parkinson's original argument, and not those discussing the color of the bike shed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality

justjimmy 15y ago

Without a brief and without data, the designer here is clearly only improving the visual aspect of the website of it (the redesign 1 page and is in image format is a big clue). Which is something alot of the other commenters just don't get it. It's visually appealing, professional and a vast improvement over the current site. Critiquing anything else beyond that is moot. When someone start expecting a designer to do copy writing, AB testing, marketing, then they will also expect them to code in HTML, CSS, JS, and before you know it, they're the classical example of those looking for unicorn designers. Even some of the design critiques here are perfect candidates for clientsfromhell.com ie: "Make the gold golder."

Alex3917 15y ago
"Critiquing anything else beyond that is moot." The goal of good design is to communicate the values and value proposition of the site. Any website should look professional and visually appealing, but the fact that a website is professional or visually appealing tells you nothing about whether or not the site is actually well designed.
- justjimmy 15y ago
  Can you critique anything beyond the visual aspect based on that single static image? You can't because there's no data, no testing done, no brief - no context. Meaningful feedback and constructive critique could be provided if the site was live, if we can see some hard numbers or we can do some user case studies as they use the site.

tptacek 15y ago

I totally do not concede the point that IAMEXEC.COM looks conspicuously weak and unprofessional. Exec's site looks better than Angie's List, for instance, which looks like a 2008 Themeforest template but still manages to engage normal people just fine. The bar for web design excellence on HN is way out of whack for what the bar actually is in the real world. This matters because I think lots of people talk themselves out of launching out of concern that some web design enthusiast is going to come out of the woodwork and accuse them of being "conspicuously unprofessional". Trust me: people have driven a shitload of business through sites that I'm sure would make you throw up in your mouth.

ForrestN 15y ago
The fact that there exist weak and unprofessional sites representing successful companies is not a counterargument against my evaluation of Exec's design. I never claimed that Exec was doomed to fail, or even that they imperatively need a redesign. I didn't make any kind of point about how much impact visual design has on a business's success. My point was about the relationship between two designs: the original Exec design and the "facelift." The facelift is much more professional, and looks much less thrown-together. To add some context, too, I'm not "coming out of the woodwork" to criticize the company. I was responding to what seemed like a lot of misplaced negativity about the facelift. I think it's definitely possible for a company to do very well without a well-designed website. But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?
- tptacek 15y ago
  If you had said their design was "weak", I wouldn't have a strong argument. You said their design was "unprofessional". Strong disagree, and disagreement worth having: people here are too hung up on unreasonable standards of "professionalism". "Professional" is a best practices standard. It very much depends on context. Angie's List is a giant site in Exec's space. Exec's launch website is to my eyes totally professional, cleaner and better written than Angie's List. What, exactly, do you think is more professional about the redesign?
  - 15y ago