Website renovation. Looking for good references

Discussions
#1

Hello everyone,
It’s being 10 years since my product launch which goes back all the way to when Joel On Software was cool and young. But…, things get old. We do. Web sites do faster still. I haven’t updated mine since the times immemorial, I think it was since the first launch in 2008, quite amazing how it survived all these years and still kicking vigorously.

I have been thinking lately, perhaps it’s time to renovate, give it some fresh new looks. May be it will improve sales… Questionable, but who knows. But I have no idea how to begin with that… Would definitely want to hire someone to do the job. Anyone here did site renovations? Any good references to good designers?

http://www.logfaces.com

#2

Add your URL with spaces before and after the dot, and I’ll edit it to make it clickable.

#3

Geezus, I remember your site! :slight_smile: We had a lively discussion on BoS, and I remember people didn’t like your logo (I don’t like it too), but I see that you still kept it! :smiley: In fact, I remembered you just a month ago while configuring filebeat for ES :angry:

I personally do not think your site looks that much old. Maybe some small CSS irregularities needs to be fixed so say tabs won’t look ugly, but overall I think it is OK - especially for the type of people who may need a log aggregator; not exactly the aesthetic snobs.

The one thing I’d do before going with renovation is to redirect all traffic to HTTPS permanently. I heard Google now declares itself a security god and punish those who has plain HTTP.

I feel that the “log aggregator” category nowadays is taken by Elastic Search and family (logstash, filebeat), and that is what you may need to compare yourself against and show your comparative benefits prominently on the site. I think it may have a better effect than just redesign… tho who knows.

#4

@rfctr - glad you remembered it!
ELK, shm-ELK…, we chug along :slight_smile:

if anyone here have ideas on how to modernize the looks, or knows someone who would, - jot me a note.

#5

If you are a DIY type of person, consider using Bootstrap, the HTML + CSS library. It makes it easy for us dev types to produce a good looking website that works well on mobile, tablet, and desktop.

There’s a thriving market in Bootstrap themes. For example, https://wrapbootstrap.com/. The themes build on top of Bootstrap to give you a site suitable for specific needs.

1 Like
#6

@SteveMcLeod,
nah, been there done that…, cost you more at the end + it never looks right + I want to keep the existing theme as it permeates into product user interfaces, brand, style, etc… I’d get back to my original designer but they long gone killed by bootstrap templates I would guess :slight_smile:

#7

The website is decent.

Regarding finding a designer: what did you try so far?

The low effort approach is to run a https://99designs.com/ contest or post a job on https://www.upwork.com/.

Those sites have plenty of low-ball jobs so offer above-average price (for the site but still cheap in the grand scheme of things) and you’ll be flooded with designers. Pick someone whose portfolio you like.

A step up in terms of quality and price would be using https://dribbble.com/designers

1 Like
#8

@kjk, yes! thank you
that’s the way to go…
do you have any practical experience with these kind of services?

#9

I did use 99design but it was for a logo, not a website, and was long time ago. It worked out fine (I did get a decent logo for a decent price).

Another option is fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?query=website%20redesign

#10

Not sure if you’ve found anyone yet but if you haven’t we design a lot of websites for SaaS businesses every year. Send me a message if want to discuss further.

#11

Had good experience with https://www.verycreative.eu for a reasonable price.

#12

I’d recommend you to do a good A/B tests and to improve downloading speed. It will be good to show it to a designer.