A relaunch of a website should always be carefully considered. Do you adjust a little at a time or make a massive change all at once? As with most things, it depends.
The only constant is change
Consider what the web looked like when Tantramar Interactive launched this site in 1997:
- Netscape 4 ruled
- Google was still a year away
- Internet Explorer 6 was 4 years away
- The iPod was 4 years away
- Social media as we know it (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) was non-existent
- The iPhone was nearly 10 years away; the iPad: 13.
Better late than never — 2013 relaunch
Needless to say, this site hasn’t gone unchanged since 1997 — far from it. While the look and feel got refreshed every few years and the logo was updated in 2008, the site has never really been rethought from the ground-up.
Now it’s a world of Retina displays, LTE networks, GPS-enabled HD videocameras in everyone’s pockets and Facebook everywhere. Broadband is ubiquitous. Dropbox, Evernote, and yes, even iCloud, make so many things that used to be impossible trivial. The how, why and when of your website’s goals may all have changed fundamentally.
The cobbler’s children had no shoes
As an old friend and colleague was fond of saying, “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.” As with any small firm, clients get more attention than in-house projects: the corporate website has long suffered from this neglect. So while the first priority is cleaning things up a bit on the content side, the look-and-feel has also gotten a much-needed overhaul.
Fully buzzword-compliant
In addition to the speed and efficiency of working and publishing with the open, dynamic WordPress platform, this site now uses CSS3, HTML5, web fonts, high-resolution graphics (for many newer mobile devices & some laptop models), along with SVG graphics, responsive layouts and casts off the albatross of supporting ancient, maddeningly-quirky browsers like Internet Explorer 6.
A lot of thought has gone into this relaunch. Different approaches have been weighed. A lot of soul-searching went on and more coffee was consumed than can possibly be healthy.
As has often been the case with client sites in the past, re-examining the website critically has resulted in asking some hard questions about the nature of the business itself. These are all good things.
I know it’s been worth it; hope you like it.
Now put this experience to work for you
Tantramar Interactive Inc. has seen a lot of technologies come and go, and a ground-up website relaunch is familiar territory.
What changes could you use some help adapting to? Let me know via the form below.
—Christopher Mackay, Sackville, NB