When digital performance stalls, a full redesign can be an attractive response.
A new visual system, updated journeys and a refreshed tech stack promise a clean break from the past. Internally, a redesign can unite teams, justify budget and create a sense of progress.
Sometimes that is exactly what is needed. Many times it is not. If upstream signals, unclear propositions, awkward policies or structural issues remain untouched, a redesign can simply rewrap the same problems in a new interface.
WHO IS THIS NOTE FOR
This note is for digital, product and marketing leaders who:
Are under pressure to improve performance and are considering a major redesign
Have been through at least one redesign before and are wary of repeating the same patterns
Want a clearer sense of what a redesign can and cannot fix
This field note looks at what is worth understanding before you commit to another redesign, and how to avoid spending a year rebuilding familiar problems.
Redesigns do real work inside organisations.
They:
All of that can be useful. The risk is that the redesign becomes a catch all solution for problems that sit elsewhere.
It is easier to plan a new website than to confront unclear propositions, messy upstream signals or structural constraints that make the experience harder than it needs to be.
A redesign can be the right move when:do real work inside organisations.
It is less likely to help when:
In those situations, a redesign can make things look and feel better without changing how well the system works.
NOTE
A redesign can change what you see. It does not automatically change how your organisation makes decisions, what it offers, or how upstream signals shape demand. If those stay the same, the new site will often converge on the same problems as the old one.
Before a redesign, it is common to find that:
In that environment, a redesign brief tends to focus on aesthetics, structure and technology, not on the conditions that drove the last system into trouble.
Before you commission a major redesign, it is useful to be able to answer a few simple questions in plain language.
If those answers are vague, contested or missing, a redesign will be working from a weak foundation.
A large organisation commissioned a redesign of its main site after repeated feedback that the experience felt confusing and outdated.
The brief focused on:
The project delivered on those terms. Early feedback was positive. The new site was more consistent, more accessible and easier to use.
Within a year, familiar issues reappeared:
Only then did the organisation look more closely at upstream signals and structural constraints. It became clear that many of the “UX problems” were symptoms of unclear policies and conflicting messages in search results and partner content.
The redesign had improved the surface. It had not touched the deeper issues.
A large organisation commissioned a redesign of its main site after repeated feedback that the experience felt confusing and outdated.
The brief focused on:
The project delivered on those terms. Early feedback was positive. The new site was more consistent, more accessible and easier to use.
Within a year, familiar issues reappeared:
Only then did the organisation look more closely at upstream signals and structural constraints. It became clear that many of the “UX problems” were symptoms of unclear policies and conflicting messages in search results and partner content.
The redesign had improved the surface. It had not touched the deeper issues.
One of the most useful things you can do before a redesign is to understand the context people bring with them.
For a small number of high value tasks:
This exercise is not complex. It is often skipped in the rush to plan features and screens.
Before a redesign, it is also important to be honest about what the site can and cannot change.
For key journeys and issues:
If large parts of the problem space are off limits, acknowledge that. A redesign that cannot touch those constraints will have limited impact, no matter how well it is executed.
EXAMPLE:
In one case, a team planned a redesign to improve sign up and onboarding. Early discovery showed that the real drop off was not in the interface, but in a requirement for users to call a separate team to complete verification.
The redesign went ahead, and the on site experience improved. The call requirement remained. Conversion moved only slightly.
When the verification process was later changed to allow digital checks for most users, conversion improved more in a few weeks than it had in the entire redesign period. The interface changes helped, but only once the structural barrier was removed.
If, after examining upstream signals and structural constraints, a redesign still makes sense, the preparation you have done can make it far more effective.
In particular:
From a Corpus perspective, a redesign is one possible response inside a larger system.
When we work with teams who are considering or planning a redesign, we typically:
Sometimes the outcome is a better grounded redesign. Sometimes it is a decision to address upstream and structural issues first, and redesign later or not at all.
The aim is not to argue against redesigns. It is to make sure that if you commit to one, it changes more than the paint.
