I just checked out the new Propeller design, and… Wow, I was a bit shocked. It took a few minutes to comprehend what the hell was going on and I found myself struggling with some of their layout decisions. Not only was I surprised by the radical new layout, I was confused by their new molecule looking logo. What is that thing?

It’s not often that I criticize someone’s work, at least not out loud. I usually keep my thoughts to myself and try to help. But, considering Propeller’s position and popularity I feel the need to share my thoughts and opinions. My intention is not to thrash their new design, which some of their more frequent users have already done, but to admit a few things I actually like.

I appreciate the little illustrated guy. He seems kind of fun with his little propeller hat. If only he spoke and told me how to get around the darn site! I like some of the larger text used throughout the site, although I felt a bit claustrophobic reading the headlines on the homepage. I wonder if anyone on the Propeller design team considered a liquid layout? Also, the large numbers are a bit distracting for me and it took a few seconds for my eyes to find the headlines. I would just rather assume that if it’s on the homepage it’s hot news.

The bottom line is that I found myself thinking way too much and spent a lot of time searching for navigation. If they plan to continue to compete against Digg, Reddit and others they may want to listen to their users.

Recently I was talking to a guy who runs a pretty successful website and after an hour or so of him boasting about his company’s growth we got on the topic of site redesigns, and when to redesign a site. Even-though there may be several reasons to redesign a site, below are three important questions you should first ask yourself or client to determine if a redesign is necessary.

Is your site findable?

Type the name of your site into a search engine. Is it listed on the first page of results? If not, why? Chances are you want people to visit your site, right? You then need to make your site findable. There are several best practices to help you build a more searchable website. You can maximize the traffic to your site by using some simple techniques within your documents along with a content strategy. Aarron Walter wrote a great post at A List Apart about findability. He points out how findability extends beyond your homepage and should be embraced by all who plan, design, and build the web. Aarron says:

The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build. When you create relevant and valuable content, present it in a machine readable format, and provide tools that facilitate content exchange and portability, you’ll help ensure that the folks you’re trying to reach get your message.

It’s important to note that findability is not only about technically optimizing your pages for search engines. Your headlines, content, design, titles, and navigation all contribute to the findability of your site. If you’re interested in digging deeper into findability and SEO I highly recommend Aarron’s book Building Findable Websites.

Is your site built with web standards?

Make sure your documents are valid, well-structured, and semantic. When you use clean, well-structured markup your site will be easier to maintain and your site will be accessible and adaptable for future web technologies. Stripping out layout tables and other useless markup and implementing web standards you will help your sites performance. To determine if your site is built with web standards validate your documents at the W3C’s markup validation service. This free service will give you a good indication of the validity of your site. You may want to get a web standards guru to help you get on the right path If you come across several errors in your documents.

Does your site look and feel fresh?

This could be a controversial question, since what exactly does a fresh site look like? I know what a fresh avocado looks like. Not too green and not too brown. Does a fresh site look like the popular sites of today? Does it have gradients and rounded corners? Martin Ringlein wrote a fun post earlier this year about his departure from the trendy web 2.0 design style to a more tangible web 2.5 style. Martin says:

So, what is web2.5? Well, it is the evolution of web2.0 of course – we’ve traded in the gradients and reflections for huge background images, over-use of real-life objects and a love for transparent and opaque backgrounds…

The odd thing is… everything emerging in this web2.5 design style is really a re-emergence of the pre-web standards era of the late nineties; when print designers started exploring with web design more and flash started taking center-stage as the best mechanism to display large high-quality images at a small size.

Doors have opened with the advancement of modern day browsers and new techniques have emerged which allow for better presentation of graphical content on the web. Today, things can be done with HTML and CSS which were not possible or supported a few years ago. In my opinion, you may want to consider a redesign if your site looks the same as it did two years ago.

Conclusion

Redesigning doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. In fact, it can be as simple as changing the way your content is displayed on the screen. You should determine if your site is working for you and if it’s completely fulfilling your needs. Is your site generating traffic, leads or sales? If not, it then may be time for a freshly redesigned site that is findable and and built with web standards.

Technorati Tags: Web Redesign, Findability, SEO, Web Standards, Web 2.0

It’s Oscar night and there’s no better place to see the evolution of design than the shows marketing posters from the past 40+ years. Just about every typography, graphic, and photography effect is represented in the collection below. You can probably guess the year each poster is from, especially the ones from the 70’s. Hovering over a poster will reveal its year. More…