Comments on: Why take time out to refresh old sites?

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:34:27 +0000

I definitely agree on the benefits of Cufon over SiFR Luc. The licensing issue is indeed a bit of a grey area though, especially with high traffic sites. But, for example on the Giraffe site we just launched, we actually purchased a specific Cufon specific license for the font – so we sleep a little better at nights knowing it’s all legit! Def worth looking into anyway.

By: Luc

Luc — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:49:20 +0000

I’ve replaced sIFR with cufón on a couple of older sites, and it’s like night and day, the effort it takes to set it up. sIFR is like a bad dream, coming back to it – so many little fixes that cufón doesn’t need make it a bit of a no-brainer (legal grey-areas of font embedding aside).

By: simon

simon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:41:39 +0000

Love your site

By: Alex Willcocks

Alex Willcocks — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:33:49 +0000

Ha! I still have sleepless nights over that light – turned out alright in the end though Good to see you lurking around anyhow, I wasn`t sure anyone even read my ramblings to be honest! No doubt catch up soon, hopefully before Xmas.

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:32:43 +0000

y’know – I have just looked at that site again – can’t beleive it is 4 years old – I still reckon is looks & performs pretty damn good for the brand. Also remembering the whole ‘we can’t use that light’ deal… That and Bella got to be the bargain of the decade thinking of their longevity.

By: Alex Willcocks

Alex Willcocks — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:42:09 +0000

I definitely agree the potential benefits extend much further than simply code or design tweaks. There have been huge of advances in online usability studies which simply didn`t exist a few years ago and which can make a world of difference, along with other business considerations like you say.

The funny thing is that if a design was poor in the first place, the client would budget to redesign, but improvements on a well-designed existing site are much harder to justify, which is crazy as it’s these improvements which are worst spending the money on and will result in a greater ROI – a redesign is just a costly way of re-doing the same work, which gets you back to square one with a big hole on your pocket

By: Dave Ellis

Dave Ellis — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:30:36 +0000

There are plenty of occasions where I’d have loved to revisit a site. Not just to update code and/or design elements but because I think the site could be working harder from a business sense too. But justifying the costs to the client is always difficult – perhaps due to the current financial climate (or more likely my selling skills!).

I truly believe a site the evolves and develops over time almost always results in a better product.
It’s an interesting post – and maybe I’ll be borrowing (ahem) a couple of your benefits to pitch the idea to existing clients in the future.