---
title: "Planning a Successful Web Relaunch"
date: 2015-10-01
author: "warrenlainenaida"
featured_image: "https://warrenlainenaida.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/56268797_343487046298701_6823260793962454299_n.jpg"
categories:
  - name: "Website Design - Great Sites Enhance User Experience!"
    url: "/category/website-design.md"
tags:
  - name: "website"
    url: "/tag/website.md"
---

# Planning a Successful Web Relaunch

## Relaunching Your Website? Just Do It!

From our workshop at the [German Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation Jahrestagungen](https://www.bundesverband-hochschulkommunikation.de/) together with [Bright Solutions](https://www.brightsolutions.de/) in 2015.

You can find more articles on [Website Design](https://warrenlainenaida.net/category/website-design/) and [Website Tech](https://warrenlainenaida.net/category/website-tech/) right here on my blog.

**1. Situation**  
Purpose of Relaunch  
Benchmarks  
Requirements

**2. Processes**  
Preparation/Stake Holders  
Analysis & Research  
Branding & Strategy  
Realisation

**3. Results  
4\. Learnings  
5\. Why Open Source?**

**———-**

## **1. Purpose of the Relaunch**

**Content User Focused**  
Create logical user stories.

**Simplified Structure**  
Task driven, focus on user paths, not structured along internal structure

**User Friendly**  
Mobile first layout, clean and simple Design

**What is Core?**  
Review core content, core user stories

## **2. Benchmarks**

- Mobile first
- Lite, flat, clean
- Mobile site and content management

## **3. Requirements**

**Editors**  
How many people manage content?

**Product Owners**  
Who are the content owners?

**End Users**  
New standards of web content, new user expectations and patterns

**IT/Partners**  
Current and future CMS – where will we need to be in 5 years?  
Internal and external competencies

## **4. Processes**

How much time do we take for each aspect of this project? Surprisingly experience shows us that most of the time spent is in scoping out the project. Design thinking, feedback loops, planning as much as you can before the build.

- Review of Branding and Communication Strategy 50%
- Analyis and Research of past performance, content review 10%
- Preparation and communication with Stake Holders 20%
- Programming 30%

## **5. Analysis and Research**

Numbers don’t lie! How much of your content is actually being viewed? How many user paths and steps are really necessary. Here are some examples from an actual project. Not sure where to begin vetting “good” and “bad” content and structure? Your analytic numbers are the best place to begin.

Monthly visits: 55,000 clicks  
Pages in total on your website: 2,500  
Average length of time a visitor spends on your site: 1.5 minuten

## **6. Learnings**

- Never start the project just before Christmas …
- Editors and other stake holders must learn that less is more. Fewer labels, less unread content …
- Better user experience across all devices

## **7. Why Open Source?**

- Costs, Competence, Creativity
- Where (and if) should you use which CMS

## **8. Overview**

- Since 2011 mobile devices have outsold desktop devices. There is no “mobile internet”.
- 378 mobile phones are sold each day. 371 babies are born each day.
- 4 W’s (and 1 H): Who, What, Why, Where (How).
- You have 90 seconds to impress your visitor.
- Just Do It