Last week we got a fantastic bit of client feedback on a recent redesign project we wrapped for his web-based business:

Hey guys,

I wanted to let you know that we have launched our new website:  http://www.yourteacher.com/

On our first full day yesterday, we had (##) subscriptions. (Our old website averaged (#) per day.)

It’s clear that the new design and graphics have been a complete home run.

Thanks again for all your help!

Mike

Check out this Google Analytics graphic showing the impact of the new design on their subscription page traffic :

In the busy professional world, good work is simply expected and praise can be infrequently found.  We always strive to make our clients happy, but it feels really good when they are moved to express their enthusiasm about the finished product.  Hats off to Bryan and Ethan, who solved this redesign project in a minimum of hours and apparently to great effect.

Check out these corny/quaint early interface designs of some of the world’s most popular websites pulled together by The Daily Beast in honor of Yahoo’s new homepage design.  Some of these will make you laugh…like whitehouse.gov circa 1998:

“Good Morning,” beamed the White House’s Web site in 1998. “Welcome to the White House.” (Whether this message changed as morning changed to afternoon and evening is unclear.) Beneath the cutting-edge waving flags and photo of the fountains outside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., a visitor to Whitehouse.gov in the late ‘90s could learn more about Bill Clinton and Al Gore: “Their accomplishments, their families, and how to send them electronic mail.

Website Flashbacks - The Daily Beast

We’ve known for some time now that the aggrieved local taxpayer and Austin web professional community’s outcry over reported plans to outsource the City of Austin website redesign to a Californian firm did not fall on deaf ears. Kudos to Austin officials for listening to concerned locals and resetting the project.

Austin Chronicle reporter Wells Dunbar delivers a thorough rundown of the project’s history, priorities, and current trajectory in this week’s issue.  It’s a good read, and the stuff about “crowdsourcing” is just plain cool.  Who knows?  Maybe there’s a scenario where we’d do work on the project, if stars align.

Whatever final form the website redesign takes, it will certainly be an improvement not only over the existing portal but also over what the city was mulling just a few months ago. The balance the city faces is in designing a site that can satisfy not only the tech-savvy crowds of OpenAustin, who have vastly invigorated public discussion of the site, but also the average visitor looking to contact her council member. (As Web tools like social networking, blogging, and the like become more ubiquitous, this gap is already shrinking.) Another component that shouldn’t be overlooked is the original impetus behind the redesign, the push for greater transparency and accountability; the city could get the slickest website in Cyberspace, resplendent with Web 2.0 doodads, but if it isn’t fed more information on permitting, development, and budgeting, it would still be an epic failure.

Read the full article here!