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Week 51: Acupuncture in Exeter
This week I will be redesigning: Acupuncture in Exeter.
In the space of 5 minutes I can identify some of the key strengths and weaknesses of this design, and sketch out a mockup.
STRENGTHS:
- The navigation is fairly clear and easy to use
- The colors and soft and welcoming, which suits the type of business
- There is some relevant imagery, adding a nice personal touch to the site.
WEAKNESSES:
- The menu text is reasonably clear, but there is no hover or active state, making it unclear where you are within the site’s structure.
- It feels strange having the logo text in the right of the header, this is quite unconventional.
- The large sunburst header image feels obsolete, and simply pushes more useful content down the page.
- The content isn’t very well laid out, the photo should be indented, as it currently pushes down the welcome text. The sidebar text is too light, making it hard to read against a white background.
My Redesign
As always, I was limited by the 30 minute time-frame, but I tried to improve upon several of Acupuncture in Exeter’s features, adding a few design flourishes and a clearer layout that promoted content over wasted space:
MY AIMS FOR THE REDESIGN:
- I created a more prominent, clear menu area, which utilizes a hover/active state, helping with browsing.
- I used a more conventional layout structure, placing the logo in the top right of the site, and making the content structure more standardized.
- I integrated a clearer welcome area, which uses relevant imagery to help establish an instant recognition amongst the audience.
- I made sure that text was more legible, using slightly larger fonts and ensuring more contrast against the background.
Before/After:
Here is a quick comparison between the original design and my 30 minute redesign. Sure, my design could be more polished, but I believe that a lot of the basic elements have been improved upon, creating a more pleasant browsing experience.
How and Why To Enter 30 Minute Redesigns
You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.
The Benefits of Getting Your Site Redesigned Include:
- Most obviously – a FREE redesign job!
- Your website gets exposure to PSDFAN’s thousands of readers
- You understand how to improve your website. This isn’t just a redesign, it’s a lesson in design principles.
- You will get emailed the .psd of your redesign and can do whatever you want with it!
NOTE: I can only accept sites with English content, as foreign language websites are simply too hard for me to work with.
So please, leave a comment today for a chance to have your website redesigned next week!
About the Author:
Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.
17 Comments:
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Hi,
I have been following this series of article since the start and its be a great inspiration. It pains me a bit to say this but its the first time that I have something negative to say. It would have been nice if you could have integrated the original color pattern with the current look you created. I think that the over abundance of green is a bit annoying.
Other than that great job on this topic since the start!
Thanks for the support and constructive criticism Paqman. I definitely would have integrated more of the original colorscheme had I had more time, this is generally something I’ll tweak towards the end of my work flow. I hope that you continue to enjoy the series though
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A terrific redesign. Much easier to read.
*I want to Thank all of you here at PSDFAN. It’s a great site. I look forward to it weekly. Education and rewards.. I am just thrilled to have received a 2 wk membership at Depositphotos.com Turned me on to a very cool site too. What a surprise and highly appreciated. Thank you very much!
Hey Lj! I’m really glad that you’re enjoying the 30 minute redesign series. That’s great to hear that you’re enjoying your DepositPhotos membership also!
Wow, great redesign Tom! Simple and professional, just as i like.
Cheers Joe! I was trying for something nice and clean with this design.
Very well done! It looks much more clean and professional.
Thanks Chris! I think it’s an improvement
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I like the desing, except for the monocolor theme. Its probably lack of time, 30 min. is really short time to details. I think this same design with a little extra color details would be great.
Thanks Hugolatra!
It was really the time constraints that limited my color palette. I tried to bring some yellow into the main background, but would have added more orange buttons/details had I had more time.
Awesome job Tom! This looks 100 times better than the original site.
Another top re-design and it gives Robin’s clinic a really professional website for visitors to come to and find out more. Very effective.
I’d echo the thoughts on there being ample ‘green-ness’ to be going on with, but you already know that.
Nice job for 30 mins. The original is typical of an amateur, but I guess I’d prefer to have them stick needles in than a web designer lol. Hope they took your advice
Great design (in 30 mins) but I think could have done with some complementary colour (red or orange) somewhere – maybe on your call to action buttons to add some extra dimension. Colours for me are slightly one-dimensional and ‘grey’ and needs a bit of zing and contrast. Maybe another box (in contrasting colour) aimed at getting people to main inside content. You’d have to find out from the client’s web stats what the most popular content was but at the moment there’s a missed opportunity to get people off the homepage to juicy content.
Hi Tom,
Sorry to not respond earlier, I’ve been away for a little. I love the redesign and it really is a 400% improvement on the original!!! I think we will definitely use a lot of this to do a new site and maybe try and get some different colours in there too!
would be grateful if you could send me the PSD so we can start working with what you have done!! Thanks again, this is such a brilliant feature!
Iain
Pretty boring design to be honest, very monotone. You need to add a secondary color
The original site design is based on a wordpress theme isn’t it? It seems unfair to compare a 4 year old wp theme to a custom theme. Having said that I’d like to see a redesign with more colour.