UX Process for A Website Redesign: Comprehensive Guide & Price

The UX Process for a website redesign involves all the practices and procedures taken to improve a website’s UX.

But what is UX in the first place?

The User Experience (UX) is integral to a web design process. UX combines logic and analysis to plan and conceptualize how users interact with a specific platform, website, or application.

Generally, a good website UX is characterized by ease of use, value perception, efficiency, and utility.

Research by Hubspot found that 88% of users are less likely to return to a website with poor UX.

And around 45% of users, as per StartupbNosia, expect a website to display correctly on different devices.

Similarly, 32% of users say they would even go as far as to dump a brand after having one bad experience, as per a survey by CM.com!

All of this points toward the importance of UX in website design!

If your website is outdated, difficult to use, or doesn’t work well across different devices, then it’s time to look for a UX website redesign. And in this article, we will take an in-depth look at the UX process for a website redesign, along with five reasons why you need one.

What is a UX website redesign?

A website UX redesign involves enhancing the website design for experience, features, and visual appearance. It can include changing the content, navigation, color scheme, layout, etc. However, the end goal is always to enhance the user experience of a website!

A website design with poor UX can lead to many problems, including low customer acquisition, ROI redundancy, expensive customer retention, etc. So if your current website is facing any of these problems, it is one of the most important reasons to redesign your website and opt for a better user experience!

Multiple signs can be associated with a poor UX, but the most prominent is that your website could become easier to use.

So, if your customers complain that your website is challenging to use or even you sometimes feel that your website is not easy to use, then that’s a surefire way to know that you need a UX redesign.

Here are five signs that you need a UX website redesign

How can one know that their website needs a UX website redesign?

Other than being “not easy to use,” there are also other signs that you need to look for:

1. Your website is not optimized for different devices, such as mobile or tablet
2. Your website still relies on old technology and thus lacks new features
3. Your website is still using old web design branding or needs a comprehensive rebranding
4. There is no structure to your website, and it looks confusing
5. Users are not spending enough time on your website and are leaving within a few seconds

All of these are valid reasons for a UI & UX redesign. Yet, sometimes one may just need a redesign just for the sake of it. If your website is too dull and static, consider getting a dynamic website with a better UX redesign.

However, your customers may see it differently and could even get frustrated if you change the design all of that sudden.

YouTube, for instance, made a UX redesign recently where it made blocks less pointy, hid the video dislikes numbers, and made it hard to catch a video’s views on desktops… I personally hated the update! And you probably have done as well!

That’s a personal experience… but here’s a fictional but relatable scenario: eBay overhauls its website. It ends up changing how to find & bid on items and/or its check-out process. For most users, it will be frustrating and could even hurt sales.

So, while it may feel like you need to introduce every single new trend in your website design, you need to think less about your feelings and more about the end user.

If you need help deciding whether to go for a UX redesign, hesitate not to contact us, and we’ll check what can be improved & what can be kept in your existing website.

Why you should try to get the best UX process possible on your website:

Before we look at the actual UX process for a website redesign, let’s look at some of the virtual benefits you can get from it:

Improve sales

One of the most prominent benefits of having a good UX is that it helps drive more sales and revenue.

Let’s assume that there is an e-commerce website that sells clothes. This website has a great search option that allows customers to narrow their search based on size, color, style, and price. That, in addition to other practical eCommerce MVPs. Let’s call it website A!

Another website sells clothes and competes in the same niche as website A. Let’s call this one website B! A closer look at website B reveals that it just shows all the products without any option of sorting the results based on user preference.

Now, you are looking for a specific piece of clothing, and you stumbled upon website B. After 5 minutes, you needed help finding what you wanted. You went back to the SERP, and clicked on website 1. 30 seconds later, you discovered the filters and found a more narrow set of choices…

What website are you more likely to recommend and revisit in the future? I doubt you’d say website B!

 More accessible

Another benefit of a good website UX is that it helps bridge the content vs. user gap.

In simpler terms, content on a website can be anything: a video, text, images, audio… and so on. A good UX ensures those pieces of content would be well presented, thus increasing the likelihood of visitors giving those components enough time!

Also, the navigation buttons to different essential pages would be easier to spot and interact with on a good UX website design.

 Customer Retention

Acquiring new customers is essential. But it is much more important to retain your old customers as well!

Once again, an excellent digital user experience on your website can ensure that it is easy to use and comfortable for the customers.

To achieve this, web design agencies usually use a process called customer journey mapping. This technique shows the entire map of a customer’s first contact with your website till the end, where a customer becomes an advocate for your brand.

Basically, it is all about putting yourself in the shoes of a customer and then trying to figure out the customer’s demands and the bottlenecks that need to be fixed or created.

Brand Popularity

A truly exceptional user experience on a website can also help your brand become popular.

If a user has a great experience on your website, then there’s a good chance that they will also share it with their friends.

So, by opting to provide a good UX, you can enjoy free word-of-mouth marketing & gain new customers!

And even if others have yet to be willing to visit your website, it will create a positive image of your brand in their mind.

The next time they need a product/service or information related to your industry, they will remember your brand. And that’s how word-of-mouth marketing works!

Here are the steps of the UX process for a website redesign:

Revamping a website’s design for a better UX  can easily include many things… From how a website looks, speed, and functionality to the overall visual brand identity!

In short, it can quickly become an extensive project and thus will carry its unique challenges.

For this reason, breaking this extensive process into different steps is essential. This will help you create a more successful plan for going from inception to getting the design that improves the UX!

Generically speaking, this process of a website’s UX redesign can be followed by any website; but other sub-steps might be created based on your particular case and special needs:

Find a UX design agency

The first step is an obvious one but also the most important one… You need to find a competent website design agency that knows how to improve the user experience of a website & has done it in the past.

An average web design agency can have a very straightforward thought process: They either pick up a template or a theme builder like Elementor and try to tweak it to suit your business’s industry. This process includes creating a custom homepage design that resembles other industry pioneers; the final product may lack originality.

Throughout the process, an average or a mediocre web design agency will pay little attention to how their decision will impact the visitors’ and users’ experience!

To get started on the right foot, you will need to look at the top web design agencies who know the importance of website UX & know how to improve it!

At Canadian Digital Consulting, we have done a lot of website redesign projects involving UX overhaul!

Determine business objectives

You also need to clearly determine what you want to achieve by redesigning the UX of your website.

By defining your business objectives, you can focus more on the things that matter. In addition, it also helps you measure the success of the redesign process according to your defined KPIs.

Let’s say you want to improve your conversion rate from 2% to 5%. Now, this is a measurable goal, and after the redesign process, you can tell if you have achieved it.

Similarly, trying to increase the opt-in email rate from 3% to 8% is also a measurable goal.

Now, different websites may have different business objectives depending on the industry they operate within.

For example, a non-profit may have informational videos and text on its website and would want more engagement with this particular content. On the other hand, an e-commerce website would be interested in generating more sales and returns on its marketing effort.

So, before you move on to the actual process of getting your website’s UX redesigned, always make a list of business objectives that you want to achieve.

You can also communicate with the web design agency to develop relevant, measurable, and attainable business objectives for your UX redesign.

Audit the old website

What’s the point of auditing the old website if we’re redesigning it?

Well, by analyzing the old design, a web design agency can get an idea of what’s performing well on your current website & what’s not. It also helps pinpoint the web design parts that can be improved for a better UX.

Well, there’s a good chance that you will already know about the issues in need of fixing… But any professional would recommend running a comprehensive website audit rather than spray and pray!

If you decide to work with us, we’ll audit your existing website to ensure that more than a pair of eyes will look at everything. That’s how we can grant you the best results possible!

But if you want to check for yourself, you can always use the following:

• Google Analytics and Heat Maps to understand the behavior of your audience and your website’s performance
• SEMrush’s auditing tool to spot the technical problems your website’s facing.

Perform Competitive Analysis

It is always a good idea to look at what your competition is doing… That definitely doesn’t mean copying & pasting what they are doing, but just getting an idea of what’s new and what’s going on in the industry.

You can spot anything from new features to implement in the new design to sloppy ones to avoid or improve! I mean, what’s the worst that can happen when you spy on competitors; nothing much, right?! 

Start the UX redesign process (finally)

Finally, we’re getting to some real stuff!

Most of the needed research, documentation, and prep work will be completed at this stage.

That’s why the next step is to prepare a roadmap along with the web design agency of your choice. The agency will be able to give you a detailed process along with a timeline of when they will complete the UX redesign process.

Again, we can already give you a clear idea about the time required for us to deliver your project as soon as you contact us with some details and specifications about your vision.

But anyway, that’s not something a good web design agency would be incapable of!

De fact, a good web design agency will also create a roadmap and a deadline that suits the clients rather than what’s suitable for them!

During this stage, the web design agency will go through design cycles to look at different flows and features.

They will create the website design sketches (wireframes) followed by a prototype; the latter will go through the testing phase.

And once the design elements are finalized, it is handed over to the development team.

Finding solutions & customer journey mapping

In this step of the UX process for a website redesign, the web design agency will brainstorm different solutions to the problems present on your old website.

And since we are talking about the UX aspect of web design, the solutions must also enhance the user experience.

A practical way to find a solution to the problematic areas on your website is by creating a customer journey map. It’s a well-thought-of visualization of the main steps a potential customer can go through, from being a cold lead to becoming a customer and an advocate for your brand!

Through this process, one can simulate how a user will interact with the elements of a website to achieve a specific goal. And based on that, the agency will be able to tailor each page’s design and each block to create a certain effect or send a certain signal to the user.

Creating A Prototype

The next step is to create a functional prototype of the new design that is fully interactive. Most agencies, including ours, would perform this task on Figma.

Yet, some prefer Photoshop and Illustrator and provide a PSD format file.

Anyway, Figma is more practical as it allows the web design agency and the client to test the website as if it was already published! Then both parties can exchange comments and suggest more functionalities and improvements!

This step is crucial because it allows all parties to look at the expectations vs. the deliverables.

It also helps point out any bugs that need to be ironed out.

Rest assured, all the UX problems and challenges must be addressed and gotten over at this step! Otherwise, coming back to the drawing board once more can make the process more expensive and complicated.

User Testing

The end goal of this whole UX process for a website redesign is to improve user experience, and the key term here is ‘user.’

So even if the design looks good to you, it’s not enough! The design must be good enough for the end user as well!

It is usual for the client and the web design agency to overlook or miss things as they are involved in the whole process.

To them, many things would be straightforward to them since they were involved, but that might be different for the user.

A probably good plus for our agency, in this regard, is that we provide some of our team members who aren’t at all involved in the web design space with the design and content to get their feedback; Think someone like me, the writer of this post!

I even tested and suggested and noted a few things about this website and this specific page’s design before it was even delivered to the public!

Going back to our main point… At this stage, the beta design can also be introduced to a selected set of users to be tested in a live environment.

It may take some extra time instead of going 100% live directly! Yet, this shall provide valuable insights that might not be possible otherwise!

And once the user’s feedback is collected & the flaws are identified, it goes back to the web design agency…

But don’t panic! We don’t usually face or spot any serious issues at this stage, and even in the worst-case scenario, we’ll need anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 day to fix any unforeseen issues.

However, if you prefer to get the web design and let the coding process get done by your in-house developer or a third party… We or any other agency won’t hold responsibility for any technical bugs that may arise after the design updating process. 

Launching the new design

This is the last step of the UX redesign process, and if you followed all the steps mentioned above correctly, there should be no problem launching the new design.

Since the old website design will be replaced with a new one, your website will be unavailable for a brief period.

For the most part, this step should take little time as the new design will already be tested in different environments.

It is usually the best practice to launch the new design at night when most website visitors are asleep.

And once the new design is live, you still need to keep a keen eye to ensure everything is working as intended. This involves checking the new design on multiple devices and actively listening to the visitor’s feedback as well!

It would also be a good idea to include an option to ask for the user’s input for a brief period of time as well. This will help spot and fix any minor problems overlooked earlier.

How much does it cost to redesign a website for better UX?

Now that’s an interesting question, but its answer is not straightforward, though… The cost to redesign a website for better UX depends on many different factors, including the complexity of the new design, website size, and so on.

If your current website design contains a lot of elements that are leading to a poor user experience, then it would mean that a significant overhaul is needed. In many cases, even a complete redesign may be the only option to fix all the elements diminishing the UX.

For example, let’s assume a website is not mobile-friendly and thus needs some significant changes in the design. This means the UX process for a website redesign would involve a lot of work, considering the number of available devices continues to increase (we even have folding phones now, which can make this process longer!).

On the contrary, fixing a few things, such as the navigation menu or the position of the content, may take less time and would be done on a limited budget.

So, depending on your website and the type of redesign needed, the cost could be anywhere from a few to several thousand dollars! Similarly, as the budget increases, so will the time it takes.

Conclusion

Enhancing the user experience on your current website design may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! As long as you choose the right web agency type, they will make it a piece of cake for you rather than a headache!

And always remember to ask as many questions as possible about their UX process for the website redesign. This will help you understand their thought process and whether they are taking the right approach (we have already listed the steps involved in the UX redesign).

When you work with a good web design agency such as Canadian Digital Consulting, we take most of the burden from your shoulders.

From reviewing the current website to discussing the different website goals with you, we collaborate with the clients at all steps. This ensures that when the new design goes live, it actually enhances the user experience rather than degrading it!