On large projects, decision makers often push for “forklift” migrations to reduce the cost in both dollars and time. That’s not an unreasonable goal, especially given the scale and complexity of many organizations’ sites. However, as Deane mentions, there are several common pitfalls to watch for if you go down this path.
First, there’s the risk of a creeping redesign. Forklift migrations promise time and cost savings because they reuse the navigation, organization, and appearance of the site’s existing design. In the real world, though, stakeholders often get cold feet. With all the time and money spent on a migration, they reason, shouldn’t they get something that’s obvious to the average visitor? “Minor updates” to the site’s look and feel are suggested, but soon all of the decisions embodied in the old design are being revisited and questioned. Hold the line at purely superficial updates, or invest in a well-planned design process: “sneaking” a redesign in this way is death by a thousand cuts for timelines and budgets.
The second danger is architectural mismatch. Different CMS platforms approach content organization and presentation in different ways. Sometimes, slavishly duplicating the appearance of the old site can force you into odd, uncomfortable workarounds that consume disproportionate time and resources. The logical choice is to tweak the design to fit the new tool’s approach, but if that’s not done carefully, it can trigger a ripple effect of design complications.
The last and most serious risk is a distorted content model. Ideally, a site’s content model serves an organization’s business and communication needs, and a design is developed to effectively present that content. When visual design is the focus of early planning (whether it’s new wireframes or the current site’s look and feel), the modeling process often focuses on duplicating that design’s idiosyncrasies and edge cases rather than the big picture. When the time comes for another redesign, those assumptions baked into the content model can make the process much more difficult.
In my experience, true forklift migrations are rare: most successful ones turn into complete redesigns by the time the project is complete. Keeping these risks in mind, however, makes realizing the promised savings much more likely.