Why Is User Feedback Essential for a Successful Website Redesign?

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User feedback website redesign

User feedback allows you to base your website redesign on the real needs and behaviors of your visitors, rather than assumptions. It reduces the risk of failure and directly increases your conversions by solving the actual problems your customers face.

Every year, many businesses invest tens of thousands into a complete website redesign. The new design is often beautiful, modern, with impressive animations. Yet a few months after launch, sales stagnate or worse: they drop. What happened? The answer is simple: nobody asked the opinion of those who actually use the site.

The Problem with "Blind" Redesigns

Imagine deciding to renovate your physical store without ever observing how your customers move around inside, which aisles they visit, where they hesitate. You’d choose product placement based on your own logic. This is exactly what happens with websites redesigned without feedback.

Here’s what typically happens:

  • Executives impose their personal tastes: “I like blue, let’s put blue everywhere”
  • Competitors get copied: without knowing if their site actually works well
  • Customer wants get assumed: instead of asking them directly

The result? A site that pleases the internal team but frustrates real users. Then, owners wonder why the bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave immediately) skyrockets.

How User Feedback Transforms a Redesign

Before Redesign: Understanding the Real Problems

Before even touching the design, you need to understand why your current site isn’t performing. That’s why you must collect concrete data:

Exit surveys: Imagine a small window that appears when a visitor is about to leave your site, asking: “What prevented you from buying today?”. The answers are often revealing: “I can’t find the prices”, “The form is too long”, “I don’t see a phone number to reach you”.

Heatmaps (tools like Hotjar that use warm colors to show where people click most): You sometimes discover that 80% of visitors click on an image thinking it’s a button, when it’s not. Or that nobody sees your “Order” button because it’s poorly placed.

Session recordings: You can literally watch (anonymously) how visitors navigate. You see them hesitate, go back, abandon a half-filled form. It’s like observing customers in a physical store.

During Redesign: Test Before Launching

Once you’ve understood the problems, you create solutions. But careful: don’t launch everything at once. Test first with real users.

User testing: Invite 5 to 8 people from your target audience (current customers or prospects) to test your new prototype. Give them simple tasks: “Find our services”, “Fill out the contact form”. Time them, observe where they get stuck. A good designer will then fix these points before the official launch.

A/B Testing (comparative tests: showing two different versions to two groups to see which performs better): For example, test two different placements for your call-to-action button. Half the visitors see version A, the other half version B. After a week, you’ll know objectively which version generates more clicks.

Qatar Market Specificities

In Qatar, listening to your users becomes even more crucial for one major cultural reason: bilingualism.

Your audience constantly navigates between Arabic and English. Without testing with local users, you risk creating:

  • An Arabic version that seems robot-translated (with embarrassing cultural errors)
  • A hidden or hard-to-find language switch button
  • A failing mobile experience (while over 95% of the population primarily uses smartphones)

Concretely, organize testing sessions with Arabic-speaking and English-speaking users. Ask them to navigate both versions. You might discover that Arabic navigation (which reads right-to-left) creates confusion with certain graphic elements designed for English.

Where to Start Concretely?

You don’t need a huge budget to begin. Here are three immediate actions:

  1. Install a free tool: Google Analytics 4 (to see where people abandon) and Hotjar (free version for heatmaps)
  2. Interview 10 existing customers: A simple 15-minute phone call with the question “What could be improved on our site?”
  3. Before launching the new version: Have 5 people external to your company test the prototype

Then, analyze the feedback, correct issues, and launch. The difference will be immediately visible in your conversion statistics.

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

How many people should I interview to get reliable feedback?

Between 5 and 8 users are sufficient to identify 85% of a website's major problems. Beyond that, you start hearing the same comments.

Is collecting user feedback expensive?

No. Tools like Google Analytics are free, and Hotjar offers a free version. Even user testing can be organized on a modest budget (offer a small incentive of 20-30 QAR per participant).

When should I collect this feedback: before, during, or after the redesign?

Ideally at all three moments. Before to understand current problems, during to validate solutions, after to continuously optimize. It's a cycle, not a one-time event.