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In this episode, Justin Hinkle makes the case that the refresh-vs.-redesign decision comes down to a single diagnostic question: is your problem on the surface or in the structure? He calls this framework Surface and Structure, and walks through what each category actually means for a travel advisor website.
Justin covers the specific signals of a surface problem (outdated copy, stale photos, design inconsistencies that can be fixed within the existing layout) versus a structural one (positioning that’s shifted, a homepage organized around the wrong thing, navigation that needs to be rethought from scratch). He explains the two most common mistakes — refreshing a structural problem until the accumulated cost approaches a redesign, and redesigning a surface problem only to find the new site performs about the same as the old one. He also introduces a middle option most advisors don’t consider, a practical diagnostic for running the assessment yourself, and when it’s worth getting outside eyes on the problem.
1. Every website problem is either a surface problem or a structural one Surface problems are about content and presentation — copy that doesn’t reflect where you are, outdated photos, design inconsistencies, a missing or weak call to action. Structural problems are about how the site is organized — the positioning it’s built around, the order of information, the navigation logic. The distinction determines everything. A structural fix applied to a surface problem wastes money. A surface fix applied to a structural problem doesn’t work.
2. The clearest signal of a structural problem is shifted positioning When a travel advisor moves from generalist to specialist — or shifts who they serve or what they specialize in — and the site doesn’t follow, the site becomes organized around a version of the business that no longer exists. Updating the copy and photos doesn’t fix that, because the problem isn’t the content, it’s the architecture. The site needs to be rebuilt around the right thing, not refreshed on top of the wrong thing.
3. Refreshing a structural problem is the more expensive mistake It’s also the more common one. Each refresh improves the surface slightly without fixing what’s actually broken, so the advisor keeps coming back to a site that still isn’t working right. The accumulated cost of repeated refreshes often approaches what a structural fix would have cost — except the structural problem is still there.
4. There’s a middle option between a full refresh and a full redesign A targeted rebuild — redesigning the specific pages with structural problems while refreshing the rest — is often the right scope. If the homepage needs to be rethought but the specialty pages are fine, rebuild the homepage and refresh the rest. Matching the scope of the work to the actual scope of the problem is more efficient than treating everything as equally broken.
5. The diagnostic: would this site work with better content in it? The core question to ask about your own site: if you updated the copy and the photos and cleaned up the design inconsistencies, would the structure hold up? Would the page flow and the navigation and the overall organization communicate the right things? If yes, that’s a surface problem. If no — if the structure itself is wrong regardless of what content is in it — that’s structural.