The Redesign Question

If you ask any seasoned designer they'll tell you that redesigning a product, takes more effort than designing a product from the ground up. Redesign is a highly complex affair that could lead to a domino effect on the various aspects of the product, service, brand and the business itself.

Apart from those so-called design aficionados, most people are happy with the current product design, unless there are pressing issues that need to be addressed. When was the last time, you as a user, woke up and dived into the day, seeking products or services to be changed. Change is tough for everyone. Change comes with a cost, both emotional and financial in most cases.

Redesign is like fixing a bus on the move.

Design leaders understand the intricacies involved and the repercussions of redesigning a product with interconnected systems. It's just not that interface, what your customers see or an amateur designer sees. I tend to ask this question in interviews as well. “Do you want to redesign a particular product, because you don't like the interface or a specific feature.” Most novice designers say yes, without giving a second thought and go on about the latest fads.

Well, every product design has a predetermined or envisioned shelf life. Macro or micro trends have an impact on your product and disrupt your business at any point of time and you might need to relook into overall product strategy and design. It is inevitable in some cases. However, random changes to design would cost you heavy and the risks mostly outweigh the benefits.

Here are the 5 side effects of redesign.

1. Opportunity Cost

There is a definitive pinch on various resources like human capital, systems and finance. However the most important one is the opportunity cost. Had the product been designed well in the first place, you wouldn’t be redesigning every year or so. This capital, time and effort could have gone in developing cutting edge features, beating your competition, newer products or extensions that could have scaled your business. Opportunity lost!

Companies which are design centric, don’t change the design often, because they invested in design in the first place and built by reasoning with first principles. They make incremental changes which are hardly noticed by most users. Incremental is better than monumental.

Design centric companies take an incremental approach to innovation. The core architecture and design philosophy of the product remains the same. However, they stay ahead in the game with small experimental changes over time. If we take a close look at the architecture of products like Amazon, Cleartrip or Apple you'll notice that the core design hasn't changed over years and even decades. In the same frame, let’s also look at their competition and how many times they have changed their design over a decade. Countless!

The core of the product remains the same, they don't just whip a new architecture or interface every year or so. They think years or even a decade ahead. Cleartrip.com has more or less the same desktop interface and experience envisioned before 2010. I have been a regular user of this product since 2009. My point being, if you’re redesigning, there needs to be a strong reason. Either you failed the market the first time, or you have something extraordinary to deliver in the market.

Brands & Products should design interfaces that leave an imprint on the customer’s mind, be it in terms of the brand promise or the consumption experience of products and services. The stronger the imprint, the more intuitive the overall user experience.

A user interface should seek an imprint in the user’s mind. It works like any place or map in the user’s mind. One can’t really change the map every few months, however, one can add a road sign to add value. Likewise micro incremental UI changes work best for users. Design changes driven by whims and fancies of new leadership, new venture capital or twitter reactions are done by companies which lack a vision, purpose, and a strong brand image.

Once you plan to redesign, companies have three things on their plate and it could be exhausting for human resources. Managing and delivering the promise on current design, working on the redesign along with its transition, ongoing research, and innovation for new products. Ideally, there should be only be two tasks at hand for a design team. Focus on improving current design, driven by data and ongoing design research and development for new features or products.

2. Architecture Overhaul

Building an architecture is a complex task that creates your place in the market. It is not just picking some assets off the shelf and creating a design system. It takes extensive resources to think, strategise, design and develop the foundational design architecture. Brand and product design asset building demand a long-term vision that can stand the test of time and trends.

3. Rebuilding Community

Great products, both enterprise and consumer, build a deep network of help channels like forums, communities, heavy documentation, and guiding systems for their users. These channels are driven by communities who are passionate about the brand or product. Communities work passionately to create and curate how-to tutorials, product comparisons, market trends, track feature requests and help new users in terms of adoption and engagement with the product. There are rich libraries and discussions on every aspect of product in the public domain.

Redesigning a product from scratch, changing an architecture, would mean, rebuilding and feeding these channels all over again. Imagine the amount of documentation that needs to be revisited, replaced and picked up the user community. Customer Success teams need to be trained all over again, with rich material like visual guides, videos, podcasts, articles, references and what not. What happens to all the existing material and collective knowledge?

4. Integration Challenge

Very few products work in an isolated manner. Most products are built to integrate into other products and services as they only offer a distinctive promise that is best fulfilled when connected with other products. Seamless integration leads to a better experience for users and generates cross channel business through partnerships.

For example, if we look at a payment wallet, you need to think about the ecosystem impact of your redesign, as the wallet by itself has no meaning and very limited function.Designers & Product Managers need to think ecosystems and not just screens or design assets. Design systems should be built with depth and scale. 

5. Learning Curve

Consider the learning curve for users who are already comfortable using your products. The whole purpose of change is to deliver a great experience, however there might be a dip in satisfaction, engagement and business when new releases are out. Incremental design is a good strategy, considering there was a good thought put into the existing design architecture.

Brand credibility is lost when you constantly redesign and users have to pay a tax on the constant change due to substandard design. Would you use a product, that changes its design every six months? Superficial redesign like an overhaul of a user interface does no good to anyone.

Conclusion

Why are we even redesigning in the first place?

This is the fundamental question, executive leadership, product and design leaders should ask themselves. Did we not spend enough time thinking through when we spent millions in the current design? Why are we relooking into our complete design strategy all over, once again? What went wrong earlier what can we do better to avoid such constant redesign initiatives? What can we learn from global brands in terms of their design strategy?

Answers will emerge when we ruthlessly question our earlier decisions.

Finally, all I am saying is — if you're going to redesign, let it be with a vision and purpose, this time. The benefits should outweigh the risks. Redesign needs to have a strong business purpose.

Good design is not costly. Bad design and constant redesign is a costly affair. It's a nightmare!