My boss has a thing about revamping the site once a year… his logic is that the customers need to relearn the navigation so that they might discover new things… I guess he really doesn’t like the idea of “Don’t make me think”.  Anyways, that made me ponder how long should a homepage be revamped?  Once a year seems a bit excessive to me, and I have noticed that sites like Intel / AMD had not updated their website for at least 2–3 years.  Now, there are many reasons why a website stays the way it is for a few year, I think these are the factors:

1. Confusions – new look drives lots of habit based current readers/customers/clients absolutely nuts.  Every year after the revamping, we got lots of emails and calls regarding the website that the customers claimed that they can’t find their things anymore.  Actually, the customers mostly freaked out at the homepage, but the rest of the page, the navigation system is pretty much the same with minor changes.  Yet, “he” persisted that we change every year, actually, the new look only hit the 6 months mark… luckily, I ‘m not the one who answer those emails and calls
2. Resources - it takes time to come up with a good design and resources to build it.  Did I mention I’m a one person graphic / web department?  I don’t know how big is Intel & AMD’s web team, but pretty sure more than 1 person.  I am imagining that they study back and forth of all the navigation and layout make sure that they don’t freak their customers out when they whip out the new look.  That, I am judging by their navigation and layout.  Intel has the most significant change on the homepage since last year, but after the homepage Intel keeps the navigation pretty much the same.  AMD also keeps the same navigation system and everything pretty much the same but with an updated look.

I mean, my boss has a point freshening the navigation, although, with the “Don’t make me think” principle… Well, let me know what you think?

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