3 Painfully Public Site Redesign Disasters

Failed cases and lessons learned in website revision

The website is revisioned, like a surgical procedure, if you are not careful, it will endanger the health and even life of the website. This article will analyze three classic website revision cases of Digg, Yahoo Email and Target.com, and learn valuable lessons from it.

Picture: Ben Margolin

Website revisions are common, but there are very few successful cases. After the revision, many websites not only did not receive good reviews from users, but instead attracted a lot of criticism. The reason is not that the user has a picky taste, but that there are serious flaws in the version change. The key indicators for measuring the success or failure of a revision are website traffic and conversion rate. Even if the visual effect is improved after the revision, if the user churn is severe, the revision will undoubtedly fail.

Unfortunately, many website revision failure cases are little known because companies are often reluctant to disclose their failures. Therefore, we can only analyze the reasons for the revision failure from public information, such as indirect metrics such as functional failures, user feedback and website traffic ranking.

Below, let's analyze three classic cases in depth:

1. Digg's Self-Destruction

Digg's revision can be regarded as a classic case of failed website revision. In 2010, as the most popular social bookmarking website at the time, Digg decided to make a revision, trying to shift his focus from social bookmarking to social networks in an attempt to compete with Facebook and Twitter.

Digg tried to weaken the monopoly of a few elite users by redistributing voting rights, so that users could pay more attention to the content shared by their friends. However, this change backfires. Most users don't have an active social network on Digg, they are used to socializing on Facebook and Twitter, looking for content on Reddit, StumbleUpon or Slashdot. Digg tried to meet social and bookmarking needs at the same time, but failed.

The revision caused Digg's US and UK users to drop by 26% and 34% respectively. Although Digg later made several revisions to try to save the situation, it never recovered its former glory.

Digg's failure lesson is: a drastic change of the core logic of a website may alienate users. Even if the revision brings some improvements, it cannot make up for the losses caused by user churn.

2. Yahoo Email—Don't touch the root

Yahoo Email failed to revise the version and was different from Digg. Digg's revision is based on reasonable logic, while Yahoo Email's revision seems unnecessary. In less than a year, Yahoo Email has undergone two revisions, both of which have been strongly opposed by users.

The revision of Yahoo Email can be summarized as "If it is not broken, don't repair it." Although the original Yahoo Email is not perfect, the two revisions have removed many features that users love, such as tags and sorting by sender, and added some features that users do not need, such as Flickr integration.

The lesson of Yahoo Email's failure is: Don't imitate industry leaders, be loyal to your own characteristics. Yahoo Mailbox tried to imitate Gmail, but lost its own characteristics, which eventually led to the loss of users.

3. Target.com——Lost yourself

Compared with the previous two cases, Target.com's revision failure is relatively small, but it is still worth our reflection. The revision of Target.com reflects the importance of brand consistency. The iconic feature of the Target brand is minimalism, while the latest revisions deviate from this feature, resulting in a messy website.

The lesson of Target.com's failure is: Don't sacrifice long-term brand value for short-term benefits or chasing trends. A gradual revision method can reduce user dissatisfaction and potential rebound.

Summary

Website revision is a high-risk, high-reward activity. A successful revision requires careful planning, thorough user testing and continuous feedback collection. More importantly, be loyal to the unique identity of the website and not blindly imitate industry leaders. Remember, step by step, users are the first!

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