A case for targeted improvements
Naturally, any meaningful improvements you can make on your website without a full redesign sound quite attractive. And there are specific situations when this is not only a viable option but also the responsible one.
Accessibility remediation
If your website doesn’t look outdated and is overall easy to navigate, then addressing accessibility issues is a great targeted improvement. Things like adding missing alt text for images or fixing heading hierarchy order in articles are often manageable by your internal staff. However, more complex issues like keyboard navigation, inaccessible forms, or poor colour contrast are best addressed with a trusted agency partner. All of these can be addressed through a standalone accessibility remediation project. If you add training for your content management team, they’ll be empowered to maintain accessibility on an ongoing basis as well. And you didn’t have to touch the broader design or structure of your website. This can be a wonderful way to not only ensure legal compliance but also embody organizational values of equity and inclusion through your website.
Content restructuring and navigation optimization
If the biggest source of user frustration on your website isn’t how it looks but how it’s organized, this too can be addressed with targeted improvements. Perhaps your programs have evolved, or your content has grown organically, like a wild garden without appropriate structure to support it. A focused information architecture engagement is a great way to improve your website’s user experience. Website visitors who can easily find what they need will see your organization as reliable and trustworthy. And your team will have to field fewer questions. It’s a win-win.
High-value page improvements
If your donation page has a low conversion rate, your homepage doesn’t clearly communicate who you are and what you do, or a campaign page creates more questions than it answers, targeted page redesign can be a worthwhile investment. That said, this only makes sense if the rest of your website is in reasonable shape and the page in question is high-stakes and high-traffic. Fixing a page that drives donations can, indeed, help to recoup the costs of fixing it and then some.
Performance and security improvements
If your website loads slowly, it’s likely preventing your audiences from interacting with your work. There are improvements that can be made directly on your website or to the environment where it lives to make it faster and make sure it’s doing its best to serve your mission. If your website runs on outdated or unsupported plugins, or has code security issues, it might not be as noticeable, but it’s a security liability. Both performance optimization and security hardening can sometimes be done without a full rebuild. Since these issues affect all of your website’s visitors and carry very real legal risks, they’re some of the most justifiable investments to make on a limited budget. Especially when it comes to security, waiting for the full website redesign might not be a viable option. So it’s a case when both targeted improvements and a full redesign are likely not an “either or” but a necessary and responsible “yes and”.
A case for a full redesign
While there are great use cases for going with targeted improvements, if your website has more structural, fundamental issues, they’ll be better served by a full redesign.
Fundamental tech issues
Technical issues like a platform that’s not supported anymore or requires major development work for your website to be updated, or a website that requires developer intervention for routine content management tasks, point to underlying technical infrastructure issues. When they crop up, choosing to address them via targeted interventions simply doesn’t work. Your website’s technical foundation needs to be rebuilt.
Structural & strategic misalignment
Similarly, while you can reorganize your website’s content and optimize its navigation, if the premise on which your website’s content is structured no longer holds true, the issue is deeper. This is a case of a strategic misalignment, not just a content organization issue. Maybe your organization has gone through a major evolution or has fundamentally changed who it serves or how. These are often indicators that restructuring content within an old framework won’t go far enough.
Visual brand changes
Finally, sometimes what looks like an accessibility issue at first can actually be a fundamental design issue. For example, if your brand assumes the use of certain colours together, but they don’t offer sufficient contrast to be accessible, you might think that just adjusting those colours a little will solve the problem. But as anyone who’s tried their hand at “just adjusting the colours a little” will tell you – that ask is much more nuanced. Now, brand adjustments don’t have to lead to full brand redesigns either. But they will likely have far-reaching effects on your brand. Colour adjustments can change your brand’s visual tone and should be approached with care. This works in both directions. You might be making what feels like a small adjustment to your visual brand, thinking it will be easy to implement on your website. But it might, in fact, have a significant impact. For example, a change in typography might require rethinking an entire typographic scale and more. It’s best to address the implications of brand design updates as more than just a targeted improvement project.
These are the cases where targeted improvements will cost you money now and still leave you needing a redesign sooner than later. Which means it’s time to start planning for the full redesign.
Start with a website audit
We’ve shared some good examples of how you can tell if a website problem goes deeper than a targeted improvement can address. And some of these issues are harder to evaluate and benefit from a more thorough evaluation. You have to fully understand the problem to come up with a good solution. A great way to get a clear and organized picture of the scale of your website’s problems is by conducting a website audit.
An audit looks at accessibility compliance, site performance, content organization, user experience (both for visitors to your website and your internal team managing its content), and technical health and security. What you get is a structured and prioritized assessment of your website’s problems and how deep they go.
If problems are deeply embedded in your website’s platform, information architecture, design system or overall visual brand, then you’re unlikely to fix them without a full rebuild and redesign. You could try, and it might even feel productive in the short term. After all, you’re doing something. But this is only delaying the inevitable.
The danger of going with targeted improvements when what you need is a full redesign isn’t just that it ends up being more expensive. Which it is, since you’re doing both, targeted improvements and still a full redesign. You’re also going to have a harder time getting stakeholder buy-in for the full redesign. After all, you just made all these improvements, that’s likely to make them reluctant to approve any new investments into your website.
It’s an unfortunate situation where band-aid solutions cost you more, take longer, and are more frustrating for your staff and audiences. This is what an audit helps to avoid.
A smaller foundational first step
When targeted improvements won’t do, but you’re not quite ready for the full redesign either, there’s a third option. A smaller first step that lays down the groundwork for the full redesign and makes that project stronger.
We’re talking about a strategic discovery project. In fact, all full redesign projects start with discovery work, and this work can be easily managed as its own standalone project. This is a great way to go when you know a lot has changed with your organization. It’s also a great way to go when you’re dealing with a lot of unknowns. An investment into user research, a content audit, and goal setting and prioritization with your stakeholders (to name just a few discovery activities) will make the eventual redesign faster and more successful. It’s a great way to align your audience, your board, your communications team, and your executive director.
It’s truly some of the most valuable work you can do in preparation for the project to come. Think of it as coming up with a strategic plan for your website, the same as you would for your organization. Now, when you’re ready for the full website redesign, you’ll know exactly what needs to be built and why. One caveat: this work shouldn’t be taken on during phases of rapid change within your organization. If your team doesn’t have the capacity to engage meaningfully, or if the strategic foundation you’re building might be outdated by the time the redesign begins, it’s worth waiting until things settle.
Your next steps
The right solution is the one that best fits the problem. Sometimes, there are incremental improvements that will extend the lifespan of your website. Other times, they are a misuse of your budget and make it more difficult to secure funding for the full redesign your website truly needs. Stakeholders can be reluctant to approve one website investment after another. So these are not decisions to make in haste. When you know your website is due for improvements, start by understanding the depth and breadth of its issues first. Then you’ll be in a better position to make the decision that serves your organization both now and in the long-term.