Common Redesign Mistakes
- Only redesigning a few critical pages - All of your content has to work together, when a few pages are updated the whole section needs to be re-evaluated.
- Content is King - The most important part of a redesign is re-writing content, be prepared to put in the time needed to create proper written materials for the web.
- Reacting to complaints - Reacting to a single complaint may be an edge case, be sure to validate it is pain point with your general audience.
- Starting with wire-frames or mockups - Wire frames are the solution, you have to know your problem before you can find the correct answer.
- Not getting multiple perspectives - Make sure multiple employees and outside perspectives are involved in your redesign.
- Adding more images - Making everything pretty does not usually fix real problems, people come to website for information or to complete a goal.
- Redesigning your homepage first - Most visitors are from Google, some will never see your homepage, your homepage should actually be designed last and serve as a page that highlights your top Goals/Priorities of the rest of your content.
- Not evaluating other cities - Most cities have the same programs and services, evaluating others can often help with redesign inspiration.
How to Redesign Your Content
This is a general outline of how you should approach a redesign. Using a data driven approach you will be more likely to achieve your goals.
1. Analyze the Old
Discover what is working and what is not. Use our "In-page Analytics" to discover what users are clicking on, and which pages are getting traffic. Identify under-performing content and look into why its not performing well.
- Look at Page Views and Link Click performance
- Do a content Audit locate all your content, a helpful tool is our site outline www.tampa.gov/sitestructure
- Identify High and low performing content and estimate the reasons why
- Gather past complaints and look for patterns
- Commons Questions to ask yourself:
- Are low traffic pages the result of not having good links to them?
- Are pages written well in common language? (See our writing for the web guide)
- Does all your content/pages make sense when you look at it as whole
- Is the content currently relevant, the more content you have the more work a visitor has to do find something.
- How does your content connect/relate/link to other similar content on the city website. Is there a department your is often confused with? Are there links connecting similar content?
- Is you content written/organized from an internal perspective that is confusing to website visitors?
2. Identify Priorities
Now that you know the current state of your content, you can determine what is important to you and your audience. Its best to know the top reasons you have web content and what the goals of that content should be. Is the main purpose of your section to give residents forms? Is a main goal to educate residents on a subject? Inform them how a city process works?
- Create an ordered list of your most important priorities or goals. What do your pages hope to achieve?
- Blend business/department goals with what your visitors goals
- Focus on doing a few things well, as opposed to everything mediocre.
- Share these Priorities with your stake holders and get buy-in, this will help keep everyone headed in the same direction.
- All your content should aim to complete these goals. Every page should have a goal or purpose.
3. Define Your Target Audience
You are creating website content for people, so it makes sense that you need to know who you are talking to in order to communicate effectively. Who is reading what you create, are they residents, working moms, business professionals, other city government employees? Knowing who you are talking to will drive how buttons are worded and content is written. If its a working Mom you need to use common language and translate city speak to common terms, a business professional might mean you can use industry specific terms or detailed facts.
- Create a list of your top "Personas"
- Figure out what is important to those personas and what they value.
- Do they value detailed paragraphs or quick summaries of information.
- Do they value industry specific terms/acronyms or common language.
- Do they want pretty marketing photos or do they prefer just the facts.
- Do they use your site on a phone in the evenings or primarily a desktop computer at their day job.
- These personas will drive how you write content, how you organize pages.
4. Create a List of Desired Changes
Now you can take your current site, with your list of priorities and your knowledge of who is going to be using your content (personas) and figure out what needs to change or be improved. Think of this as a wish list. Write down features or content you want to add or remove. Changes to the organization of content, menu changes.
- These changes will serve as a TODO list and drive your new content
- Typically theses changes are associated to a goal or reason so it helps to record what is driving the change.
- These should be specific but not too detailed. For example:
- "Make the tree permit process easier for residents, because its too complicated"
- "Promote the low page views Water Relief Program page, because it is under utilized and has excess funds"
5. Wire frames and Re-organization
Wire frames help you plan out changes and adjust things quickly. They are meant to not be detailed and often a pencil and paper is all this needed. Take your list of changes and figure out in detail how to implement them on each page.
- Take an existing page and start to redesign it so that it better meets your goals
- Work your way from less visual stuff like Word Documents, into wire frames and then into detailed mock ups or draft web pages.
- Test new designs against the goals, personas you created to make sure it meets your needs.
- Gather feedback from others less familiar with your content.
- Test finding content from Google or purposefully starting on the wrong page.
- Once the content is nailed down, that is a good time to enhance it with marketing photos or other visual elements intended to make the content more engaging or appealing.
Contact the WebTeam for more help
Email web-requests@tampagov.net if you need help getting started or are interested in a redesign. We can work with you by giving you general guidance and best practices.