Website redesign is usually done when businesses or individuals want the ethos of the website, its message, and its overall appeal to remain the same, but also want the design to appear fresh. They want a design that makes use of its existing concept and rework it to address the changing needs and expectations of their website visitors.

But, before the redesign process is actually underway, you will need to consider a few crucial factors that need to be considered before redesigning a custom website.

The Objective

Every purpose needs an objective. When it comes to redesign you need to have a very clear idea as to what you want accomplished. It’s your reasons and motivations that will go a long way in ensuring that the process of redesign has a clear direction. All through the process of redesign, you will need to take some crucial decisions and these can only be taken correctly if you have a clearly underlined goal for redesign.

The Extent of Redesign

You need to clearly define the nature of the redesign as to whether it’s a minor upgrade or you are overhauling the site completely. There is a very thin line between a complete site overhaul and an entirely new site. You need to consider this factor because the cost of the project and the time and effort required to bring it to fruition depend on the scope of the redesign. It’s also important to remember that the amount of changes you make is inversely proportional to the way the new website resembles the older site.

Incorporating features/Elements of Existing Site

Your older website design can offer the designing framework for the new website. So, you will need to work out which aspects of the older website do you want incorporated into the redesigned site. Just make a list of what you like about your current site and ask your re-designers to incorporate the same in the new site.

Ignoring the Non Workable Aspects

There are some aspects that work and some that don’t. Now, there might be a case wherein, you like a feature that has become redundant. Well, it’s important that when it comes to choosing the features of the current design that need to be incorporated into the redesigned site, you need to adopt a mercenary approach. Just ignore something that is non-workable irrespective of whether you like it or not.

Identifying Target Users

Don’t forget your target audience in the proceedings. You are redesigning your website for your target audience and nobody else. So, you will first need to identify them, never mind that you had identified them when you had designed your existing website. You will need to start afresh, as your target audience must have increased in the ensuing years. So, you must identify the user, recognize their needs and try and make sure that the website redesign has kept their needs in mind.

Ensuring User Friendliness

There is a tendency for both designers and the concerned clients to go one up over their existing design when it comes to redesigning it. In doing so, they add certain design complexities to the new website, which have an impact on its user friendliness. This must be avoided at all costs. The website must be user friendly, which in turn encourages a better and more satisfactory user experience.

Determine Design Focus

A website’s design, even if it’s a redesign will highlight certain sections of the website, text or images above others. So, you will need to first determine those parts of the website that need to be emphasized so that they get more user attention. There are many different ways to make this possible, so you need to choose the ways and means that suit your needs and requirements best.

These are just 7 considerations, but there are plenty of others that need to be considered before beginning the process of redesign. This will make sure that the redesign efforts do not go in vain.