No one expects a great novel to be perfect the moment it is written, it must be edited and passed through multiple drafts before its success can be realized. A successful web site is no different. If you have been disappointed with the results of previous web development, GRSDesign can help. More and more, we are called upon to fix or expand a hastily made web site.

GRSDesign provides all of the services you will need to redesign an ailing web site into a successful web presence. We have developed a methodology with specific steps to address all of the site issues a company may have without guesswork. The first step of an effective redesign is to clearly identify and accurately analyze areas of the site that need to be reworked.

Analysis

Success Factors and Measures
Before work can begin, a business' redesign priorities must be defined to create success factors and targets. These definitions will place specific requirements on a site redesign and create milestones to achieve when the site goes live.

Business Analysis
It is only through a clear definition of your business's messages and online goals that a well made web site can be created. Your company's message and goals will correspond to a visual style, user tasks and user objectives. Taken as a whole, these components will create the user experience. The site goals must be plainly communicated and actively maintained to ensure that the site does not drift from its purpose.

Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis will provide the tools and ideas to outshine your competition. By devising better solutions to your competitor's problems areas while utilizing the application of their successful ideas, GRSDesign can create a site that provides a compelling user experience. A competitive analysis will also help define a successful visual presentation allowing a company to establish a place among the competition or to stand out in the crowd.

User Analysis
A user analysis looks to guide the design of a site with an understanding of the target audiences by gender, age, social and economic factors and behavior patterns. Some user audiences will need additional guidance through the navigation and general site processes while a web familiar audience will not. This study helps define what level of complexity and technology a specific target audience is able or ready to comprehend. A clearly defined target audience will help guide the tone and create essential usability requirements.

In complex sites there is sometimes a secondary audience of internal users within a company who will maintain and update the site content on a regular basis. System requirements for maintenance teams can be gathered through a secondary user analysis that will provide the information to create a structured site development workflow essential to preserving a web's quality and consistency.

Maintenance Process Analysis
Due to the conversational nature of a successful web presence, modern corporations lack the organizational structure to properly maintain a web site. Often a well made web site will quickly drift from it's purpose, message and effectiveness as it's content is bent to a poor maintenance system structure. Instituting a successful web publication structure can be as important as the effort put into the original web development. Using business analysis and maintenance process analysis an effective web publication structure can be instituted with the proper checks and balances to guarantee a high quality web presence.

Testing

Usability Testing
The usability test is the most cost effective tool for locating and resolving problems both with general site issues and specific site tasks. General usability testing will observe users performing common tasks and can quickly identify problems with an information architecture, labeling, button titles, instruction text and screen layout. Scenario-based usability tests on a specific task intensive area of the site, such as a shopping cart checkout, can locate expensive site problem areas.

Statistical Analysis
Analyzing users trends on a site can reveal a plethora of valuable redesign information. A click path is the series of links that a user selects to navigate through a site or a specific process within a site. Statistical analysis of user click paths provides incite into the success of an information architecture. If the user consistently takes an obscure or lengthy click path to locate specific information on a site, an adjustment to the information architecture is required. Corrections of this type yield significantly increased audience retention, lower costs on both hosting high bandwidth sites and customer support phone calls.

Redesign

Information Re-Architecture
Using information from the analysis phase of development coupled with the feedback from usability testing, an ailing information architecture can be rebuilt to better suit users. Care must be take to adjust the sections and labels that led to confusion without obfuscating the labels and section that worked correctly in the past.

Layout
A site's layout can be adjusted to take full benefit of a redesign. Design elements can be added or removed to highlight site functionality. Layouts can be adjusted to lend clarity to page elements, information and process steps. Unsuccessful branding elements can be enhanced, moved or replaced. New layouts and design can be quickly tested with a user audience to prove their validity before they are placed into production.

Successful Roll Out

Even if your site might have been poorly designed, is has become a familiar place to your customers. A carefully planned and well announced rollout schedule will allow changes without suddenly shocking your audiences with a completely foreign site. For complex site redesigns, a staged release may in many ways be the best approach. Each redesign situation must be analyzed and handled as a unique instance to foster optimum audience retention and acceptance.