Anatomy of a website redesign

Considering a redesign of your website and wondering where to start?

As a former architect, I believe there needs to be a rational process to underpin any design, be it for a building or for redesigning a website.

This process normally involves:

• Defining the issues
• Defining the brief
• Choose your development team
• Refine the brief
• Visual design
• Coding
• Go-live

1. Define the issues

This is an important first step - get this wrong and your site could ultimately fail. 

In summary, though:

• What is the need for change?
• Has your target market or ideal client changed?
• What external issues are there?
• Have changes in the way people access the web affected your site (Eg. mobile/desktop)?
• Are you having issues administering your site?
• Is your site performing well enough?

It’s important to make sure you only change what isn’t working, and don’t change what is; These decisions can be informed by data from your site analytics, traffic and conversions. Doing this short audit of your current site will help with the next step.

2. Define the brief

Take all the above points and use them to create an outline brief. Carry out some work to outline how your competition is doing on the web. Also, take a sideways look at industries related to yours and pick out good examples of best practice and note things they are doing well. This brief now forms your aims and goals of the redesign.

3. Choose your design and development team

Consider companies with experience in your sector. Take a look at their work and decide if they will be a good fit with your organisation. Don’t be shy about requesting some references, too.

4. Refine the brief

Down to the finer details of what the site is supposed to do and how it’s supposed to function. Your professional team will be on hand to help you refine the brief, thinking about overall layouts, organisation of pages and information flow. This step allows for clarification of site features, how these will function and where they’ll be placed with consideration for the user interface and visitor purposes.

5. Visual design

Your web team will come up with a visual style guide that will be followed throughout the redesign, and this will align with your goals and any points set out in the brief.

This will be done with accessibility and page loading speed in mind, focusing on who your target audience are, and how they will be accessing the site.

Page mock-ups at this stage can be useful. 

6. Coding / build

At Volute we code our websites to modern accessible standards, protecting our clients’ long-term investment. It means the design is coded to be modular so that new features can be added in the future without having to start from scratch.

7. Go live

With the re-coding done, it’s time to share the newly redesigned website with the team before going live. This allows time to check everything over, test all links, and take a backup of the site before the switchover. 

Timing is everything, so consider doing this overnight or at a less disruptive time when very few visitors are likely to be on your site.

And finally, why not put together a relaunch campaign to announce your redesign to the world.

Whatever your reason for the redesign, it’s a good idea to keep visitors to your site interested and engaged with a periodic refresh, and when done correctly with a clear plan and well structured brief, the results speak for themselves.

To find out how we can help you with your website redesign contact us by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or give us a ring on 0115 914 5839.