7 min readŠtěpán Unar

Why Most Website Redesigns Fail (And How to Avoid It)

80% of redesigns don't hit their goals. The problem isn't design — it's strategy. Here's the framework that works.

The typical redesign story

The typical redesign story goes like this: the CEO sees a competitor's new website and decides yours looks dated. A designer creates beautiful mockups. Everyone gets excited. Six months and €50,000 later, the new site launches — and conversion rates drop. Traffic dips. The sales team complains the leads are worse. Sound familiar?

Aesthetics vs. data

The root cause is almost always the same: the redesign was driven by aesthetics, not data. Nobody analyzed what was actually working on the old site. Nobody defined measurable success criteria before starting. Nobody tested the new design with real users before launch. The result is a site that looks better but performs worse — because looking good and converting well are different problems.

The framework that works

The framework that works: Start with analytics. Identify your top-performing pages, highest-converting paths, and biggest drop-off points. Define specific, measurable goals (increase demo requests by 30%, reduce bounce rate on pricing page by 15%). Redesign the underperforming areas first. A/B test major changes before committing. Launch incrementally — not as a big reveal — so you can measure impact and roll back if needed.

Invisible evolution

The best redesigns are invisible to users. They feel like natural evolution, not a jarring change. Navigation stays familiar. Key content stays findable. The improvements are in speed, clarity, and conversion flow — not in how many animations you can fit on the homepage. At steezr, we treat every redesign as a performance optimization project that happens to include visual improvements. That's why our redesigns actually move the needle.

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Štěpán Unar

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80% of redesigns don't hit their goals. The problem isn't design — it's strategy. Here's the framework that works.