Lessons from a Design Legend (a before-and-after)

The difference really is night and day. Amazing!<p>I have one major issue, though. Their original "Redeem" button was ugly and garish, but <i>it looked like a button</i>. It screams out "click me. CLICK MEEEEEE".<p>The new "Redeem" button is gorgeous, but it's actually a step backwards in terms of usability. First of all, it doesn't look like a button. Am I supposed to click? Where? Are the little circles also buttons? Speaking of the little circles, they really steal the show. They're so colorful and attractive, that you don't even notice the central circle - and, critically, you don't read the text that says "Redeem". I had to look at the pre-overhaul image to get a reminder of what I was supposed to be doing at this screen.

While the new design is undoubtedly prettier I'd wait to call it a success and see if it actually <i>works</i> better, because I kinda feel like the old design was better in the <i>functionality department</i>. Here's a couple reasons why:<p>1. It's very <i>de auteur</i>. If you watch it in contrast with every other Mike Kus design as beautiful and awesome they are you'll see that this design is not <i>that</i> original and looks just every other Mike Kus design. 2. The mobile app looks like a giant bueautiful useless splash screen. It has a lot more graphics and details and yet it conveys a lot less information that the 'before' design. For starters, that the damn button is clickable and it will redeem something from Mario's Pizzeria.<p>Or am I just becoming an old cranky designer?

There's a standard "startup app look", and your first design was that - it didn't stand out from other apps. The new design is excellent, it feels much more like sending a gift. I can imagine users better connecting with the new design. Thanks for sharing these design tips. Bravo!

HN'ers can be serious buzz kills. Yeah, you can argue that it's less usable but the brand and emotion is dramatically more upbeat and fun, which is what I think the company is going for. I would be more likely to pay attention to hall the pages with this re-design than the templated startup design that was created before. This new design is easily one that will be passed around Twitter and other social media. The fact that you were able to make gift cards seem fun and attractive is a testament to his talent. Kudos to you guys.<p>And while I wouldn't call Mike Kus a design legend (I'd reserve that for peeps like Jonathan Ive, Dieter Rams, the HFJ duo... basically those who have a profound effect on the industry, peoples lifestyle and/or the craft) he definitely is one of the best web designers out there.

I don't have any issue on the aesthetics as these are subjective. On any point on the spectrum of utilitarian and flamboyant you win/lose some audience effect. The trick is to rest on the spot where your target audience's visual preference resides.<p>The issue here (at least on the front page and mobile screen) is the Information architecture. Putting the graphic first before the tagline pitch is not very effective (the graphic is a visual aide not the other way around) and a form instead of a call to action button doesn't also work. The next set of info is too far below the fold, etc.<p>I can see that its layout is inspired by the Facebook logged out home page. But this is not a household-known social network but an app that does one thing and a bunch of extras so the goal is not to dazzle then cause action but to inform to cause action.<p>In my humble opinion this exercise took some important aspect of the product backward in terms of informing users more efficiently and I would imagine the load times (for the website) also adversely affected. Im not saying you should scratch this redesign but refine this version more and hopefully iterate to one that is pretty and informative (and faster!)

Without a doubt the new site looks way better, Mike Kus does some amazing work. However, in the process I think a lot of things have happened here that probably would lead to more user confusion or drops in conversion than the old design. Design is more than just making it pretty, its also making it usable and making it convert.<p>A few specific examples...<p>1. I find the point about contrast in the article to be completely false. There is a more muted palette but I disagree that brown on black is higher contrast than red on white.<p>2. The mini-circles around the redeem button are just distracting from the primary call to action on that screen, do they do anything? Why would you trade the location name for buttons that don't do anything?<p><a href="http://o7.no/pwkxA9" rel="nofollow">http://o7.no/pwkxA9</a> [png]<p>3. The homepage no longer has a single clear call to action ("send a giftrocket"), if you increase the number of possible users paths on a page it will almost always lead to reduced conversion. Your homepage has 19 things I can click on above the fold. (For point of comparison Square and LivingSocial have 5, Groupon has 4). Does anyone give a GiftRocket by clicking on the categories and browsing?

"2. When it comes to contrast: go big or go home!"<p><pre><code> background-color: #F7F2DD; color: #4F5354; </code></pre> Uh huh.

FYI: this blog post's text was unreadably faint on initial load into FF6 with NoScript.<p>(Kind of ironic for a post which includes the emphatic lessons "When it comes to contrast: go big or go home!" and "Pay attention to typography".)<p>Enabling Javascript for the page helped; perhaps that's how the "text-shadows [Mike applied] to nearly everything" so that "the text felt more vibrant" were implemented?<p>So I would add a lesson #7: don't rely on fancy Javascript effects for something as basic as readability.

The first design is much better in terms of usability and clarity. The header immediately catches my attention and brings me into a sentence that describes your service. The second design just directs me to put in my email, why should I? What is the value proposition, I don't even know what this thing does. The first design uses white space and contrast very well, exposing the call to action button. It also contains a mobile phone picture running the app to give the visitor a preview of what the device would look like on their phone. It's like the 'test drive effect' car dealerships have when they let you try out the car; there is less mystery to what you are getting.<p>The second design did make some good changes, particularly larger pictures of food, however it comes off as too design heavy and lacking clarity in several areas.<p>Overall I feel there is more clarity with what you want me to do in the first design.<p>Edit: You have to view the work as a whole when comparing the designs side by side. There were several important parts of Mike's design that were cut out to fit the blog post that actually bring a ton more clarity.

Friendly word of warning to the site owners: whatever you're doing is tripping so many malware alerts in my browser/plug-ins that I couldn't even get as far as reading your article (which is a shame, because it sounded interesting).<p>FYI, I'm not running anything particularly unusual, and I have never seen that kind of effect on a page before with this browsing set-up. Either (a) you've been "0wn3d" or (b) you really need to tone down the scripting to an acceptable level or (c) you're probably going to put off a significant number of people who might otherwise be interested in your site.

Aside from the article itself, I am confused by the title. Are they meaning to call <i>themselves</i> a "design legend"?<p>I have not heard of them. Also, their blog site layout is quite flawed. The text hits the left edge of the page at 1000px width. First, text should never hit the left side of the page. There should absolutely always be a margin of no less than 8px, but nearly always should be at least 0.25". Second, 1024px is more than half of a 1920px width screen and the site only looks proper at about 1280px width. This is too wide.<p>We (people using computers) have been forced into wide screen aspect ratio displays because of the need to show movies. Fine, that is the way it is. But this means that common use is to have two pages or tasks side by side. Full screen for tasks of reading produces lines that are much too wide to scan properly. Web pages should not require more than 960px for basic reading. The 960px includes the window scroll bars and frame if present, so the actual page text should be slightly smaller.<p>Do not design windows that expect 1024px or 1280px width, and do not design windows where the text crashes into the page edge when resized. Both these are very amateur hour mistakes. Therefore, it is inconceivable that the people at this firm are "design legends".

The fonts on the new version are less readable. Logo in gold on yellowish/cream background? its the same color category!<p>Black on weird textured background for the body? <i>do not use textures for background - like - ever - if you're going to write text on it</i><p>Then gold text on cream again.<p>Design legend much?<p>The rest is ok and there's some actually good tips but what I listed is totally noobish.

New site is absolutely gorgeous. The blog post is nice, but you have to click around the full-size website to see the difference. The design gives me confidence using your site and makes me almost feel like the results are hand-crafted. Great job.

The new site looks great, gorgeous but I think you should do an A/B test, I wouldn't be surprise if you find out, the old site convert better than the new one, I'm almost sure the old sure convert by far better than the new one, so the question will be: Are you trying to get a nice looking site or get new users? The new site has too much distraction: Don't make me think! Don't make me ask myself what all those nice looking icons are for! Credit to the designer for the creativity/talent but, I'll really do an A/B test here to find out if it's really an improvement.

This is a great post because it does two things: first, it shows that you don't necessarily <i>need</i> an out of this world design for your first version, but also, that it pays to upgrade your design once you have the means. But, like a lot of people are saying, the one thing this article lacks is a demonstration of the designing generating more business than the previous version. Here's hoping that Gift Rocket does a follow up post comparing stats from the before and after.

I love the design from a pure aesthetic point of view but if you're going for commerce it's "test or die" because at the end of the day conversion metrics rule your business. I'd like to know how this new design contributed to their bottom line. Also, no offense to the very talented designer, but looking through his portfolio the current style follows a lot of his other work, hence not too much originality to distinguish it from his other clients.

I can't keep from noticing the texture in the background, so the text might as well not be there. I gave up on trying to "design" my own blog and just focused on making it mildly appealing and easy to use. No complaints so far.

Liked the down to earth tips.<p>Websites like this are really design products. If it's not graphic design, it's service design. The technical stuff is comes second.

Does anybody know how much that kind of work costs? I'd shoot mike an email but I'm guessing you guys could give a broader range of answers.

I wrote a really scathing review. So scathing that even I couldn't post it. But in essence:<p>Brown background.<p>Presents!!!<p>Brown sky.<p>Brown favicon.<p>Spot the odd one out.

And this improved sign-up and retention by how much?