Build7 min read
The Webflow class system we use on every build
Most Webflow projects rot because classes are named after what things look like. Here is the convention we use instead, and the three rules that keep it intact.
Tomas Reiner
Strategy
All writingA redesign will not fix your traffic problem
If the numbers are bad, the site is usually the symptom. We turn away redesign briefs every year because the honest answer is that a new homepage would not have helped.
Mara EllisonDesign director6 min read
A recurring conversation: enquiries are down, the leadership team have decided the website looks dated, and there is budget approved for a redesign. Could we start in March.
Sometimes the site really is the problem. Often it is the most visible thing that can be changed with an approved budget, which is not the same as being the cause.
Find out where it broke
Before quoting, we ask for analytics access and look at one thing: when the decline started, and which channel it started in.
If organic search fell off a cliff in a single week, that is an algorithm update or a technical fault, and a redesign will not touch it. If paid traffic held steady while conversion fell, something changed in the offer or the market. If every channel drifted down slowly over two years, the content stopped being maintained.
Each of those has a different fix, and only one of them is a new website.
The most common actual cause
In our experience it is neglect rather than design. Pages that were accurate three years ago, pricing that no longer matches, case studies from clients who have since churned, a blog whose last post is dated.
Visitors read staleness as risk. A beautifully redesigned site with the same out-of-date content converts about as well as the old one, and costs considerably more.
What we suggest instead
Often a fraction of the redesign budget spent on rewriting the twenty pages that receive traffic, fixing the technical faults, and putting someone in charge of keeping it current.
Then, if the numbers still say the site is the constraint, redesign with much better information about what it needs to do.
Why we tell people this
Partly because taking money for the wrong project ends badly for everyone about four months in. Mostly because the clients we like working with are the ones who wanted to be told.
If the honest answer is that you do not need us this year, we would rather say so and be the studio you call when you do.
Written by
Mara Ellison
Design director
Leads discovery and interface design at OrangeOrange. Spends most of her time arguing that the navigation should have fewer items in it.
More writing
Other notes from the studio on the same shelf.
Design5 min read
Why we wireframe in grey
Colour ends arguments prematurely. Designing structure in greyscale forces the conversation you actually need to have, and it makes the visual stage faster.
Mara Ellison
Branding6 min read
Nobody reads your brand guidelines
A hundred-page PDF is a monument, not a tool. What actually keeps a brand consistent is a short document, published where people work, showing misuse alongside correct use.
Mara Ellison
