01
Follow the route a visitor takes.
Read the site in sequence. Start where a new visitor lands, check how the offer is explained, follow the primary action, then repeat the journey on a small screen and visit a page that does not exist.
Clarity before change
Before you redesign your website, decide what actually needs to change.
A redesign can make a website feel new without resolving the decision underneath it. It can also remove patterns that were already doing useful work. Start with what visitors understand, where the journey gets in the way and what should be preserved.
Start in the right place
Name the decision, not the redesign.
Write the decision in one sentence before discussing pages, colours or components. Are you trying to clarify the offer, help a particular visitor act, support a changed business or repair trust in an important journey? Only then can you judge whether a redesign is the answer at all.
Five questions before the brief
- Who needs to recognise that this is for them?
- What should they understand on the first useful screen?
- What is the next action, and does it work from beginning to end?
- What evidence says the current experience is getting in the way?
- Which parts already work and must survive the change?
02
Group symptoms before changing pages.
Several awkward moments often share one cause. Rewriting five calls to action will not help if the offer itself is unclear. Name the underlying issue, then decide which symptoms it explains.
03
Protect the strongest part.
Find the page, message or interaction that already works best. “What to leave alone” lowers the risk of replacing good work and gives the redesign a benchmark.
Record the unknowns
Know what the public website cannot answer.
A public review can show what the pages say and how the visible journey behaves. It cannot tell you which traffic source converts best, where real customers abandon a form, what research has already found or which internal constraint shaped the build.
Keep those as open questions. Use analytics, customer conversations or authorised internal evidence before turning an inference into a requirement.
Read the public-evidence boundary →Prioritise before briefing
Make three lists—and keep a fourth beside them.
Do first
One to three changes tied to the highest-consequence evidence.
Do next
Useful work that depends on, or becomes clearer after, the first move.
Can wait
Real issues whose delay is safe, with the reason written down.
Leave alone
Working pages, messages and interactions the change must protect.
A short pre-redesign review
Check the evidence before work begins.
This is a decision checklist, not a promise that every item needs changing.
- ✓ The intended visitor and offer are clear on the first useful screen.
- ✓ The primary action is visible, accurately labelled and works end to end.
- ✓ Contact routes, forms, links and downloads have been followed and checked.
- ✓ Trust evidence appears where the visitor needs it.
- ✓ The mobile journey preserves the same essential meaning and action.
- ✓ Titles, descriptions, canonicals and sharing previews are consistent.
- ✓ Cookies, consent and the privacy route match what the site actually does.
- ✓ Missing-page and reduced-motion experiences remain usable.
- ✓ The strongest existing page or pattern has been named and protected.
- ✓ Unknowns that need analytics, research or source access are written down.
Redesign, targeted change or test first?
Targeted change
Use it when the evidence points to a few isolated problems and the underlying structure remains sound.
Broader redesign
Consider it when the same root cause runs through navigation, hierarchy, content and repeated patterns—not merely because the site feels old.
Test first
Choose this when the important question depends on evidence the public website cannot provide.
These are decision prompts, not guarantees. The right route depends on the evidence available and the consequence of getting it wrong.
Get clarity before change.
GreatInternet gives you an independent read of the public website: what matters, what to preserve and the next sensible step. We do not sell the rebuild.