I have this conjecture that the easier it is to dress a new medium up like the media that came before it, the longer it stays that way. The Web has been around for two decades now, so judging by important innovations in the past, the Web is due to come into its own. I believe we should help it along.

I'm not talking about responsive design (which, by the way, while being all the rage these days, was conceived in the 90s). The idea I wish to challenge is that of the redesign.

To re-anything is to throw something out and start again, which for the Web is as easy as nuking your document root and copying something into its place. But whenever we do that, it's like a big up-yours to every user and every site in the neighbourhood, because we upset the positions of things and sever connections which are valuable to both them and us.

But network diplomacy aside, the idea of the redesign has implications for both fulfillment and financial risk, which all major Web properties mitigate by chopping their products up into increments which they can deploy and get feedback on immediately. My question is: why do people work any other way?

So I'm inventing a process, which is part of a larger process for managing the lifecycle of Web resources. I'm redesigning the redesign, to not have to be a redesign. And I'm touching on the organizational and financial aspects as well.

This is a learning process, which I am piloting with the IA Institute and some choice clients. I would also eventually like to partner with some web shops to refine it. My goal is to codify this process so we can all start working this way.

All the pieces have been lying around since the beginning, I suppose it just takes somebody to put them together.