CIL 2009 Day 1 - Website Redesign Pitfalls

Having just done a couple redesigns I have no intention of doing another design just now, but I thought it would be interesting to hear what would be said here. The most interesting thing about the session was that in many ways the presenter discouraged redesigning (or in his terms, redeveloping) unless you have particular, verifiable, measurable goals. If the site "feels old", change the colors and the fonts and swap out some graphics, but leave the structure intact. One of his points I think we've felt in the wake of our recent redesign: staff like redesigning (it's exciting) but users hate them. As time goes on users like your design more as you like it less, hence the necessity to evaluate real reasons for a redesign before doing one and redesign to meet those goals (preferably avoiding a committee in the process). Good points in general on the redesign process and how to avoid the redesign process entirely.