One thing I forgot to mention in our recent
saga about redesigning the Opteron server and workstation pages was
how we had to design twice: Once for the makeover of the pages... and
then again for a major site redesign that we knew was coming.
Although we thought about holding off with the revamp of these pages
until we completed our rebranded site design, we decided to forge ahead
on a new preliminary redesign first and then rework it as needed when
we did the rebranding.
I think it was a good decision, because we were able to launch some
slick new pages in December and get some feedback on the design once it
was live. We used this feedback, and our experience from rolling out
the first design, to make tweaks when we rebranded. Here's a comparison
of the V40z pages in the two
different designs.
| V40z:
First redesign... |
V40z:
Rebranded redesign... |
|
|
|
The neat thing about having a solid first design is that we were
able to leverage the same information architecture and layout and make
a few changes in the visual treatment that gave a whole new effect. The
tabs, labels, gallery, content, video, and chart information largely
stayed the same. What changed:
- We moved the tabs down below the "big top" graphic. This makes the big image treatment consistent with new things we are doing elsewhere on the site. (Though we lamented losing the neat effect in the original design where the image bled into the tab, the change was worth it for consistency.)
- We did an overall color palette update to the components and info graphics.
- Components like tabs, headings, and the page top and footer got the new treatment that was being applied elsewhere as part of the redesign.
- We didn't reshoot any photography, but we did give the photo images different set up to work within the new "big top" style.
- The popup photo gallery got a nice new treatment with new colors
Moral of the story: Good IA, page structure, and content are
timeless, even in the midst of a major rebranding.
Tunes: Iron & Wine: Gray Stables
