Realized I was so busy I didn't get a chance to respond to last week's Exec redesign, but in general I was happy that Kyro took a shot at it and thought he surfaced some interesting ideas, and that it definitely looked much prettier than what we have today.
Unsolicited designs are definitely not disrespectful and are very much appreciated: I love to get other people's thoughts on what we can do better in all aspects of the business.
No. Prettier != better, as one other commentator pointed out. I think there were many things that Kyro did better than the current design, but his design wasn't something I'd be comfortable putting on the site in it's current form.
To address some of the points in the other thread: Yes, the current Exec design looks like something that was done by a non-designer in an hour. That's because it was, by me, the night before we launched. And I'm comfortable with how it works; when we have a full time designer in house they will iterate it based on achieving specific goals.
I don't believe in changing design for the sake of changing design or just having something prettier. I believe in design that achieves specific goals and functions, and that defining those goals and functions are actually the most important parts of the design process. Because of that, I do not believe that it is possible for us to use an outside design without first coming up with new goals for the front page. I don't want to invest my own time in doing that right now, because my time is extremely valuable and I don't think our crappy front page is our current bottle neck on Exec (actually, I know it isn't). So, any effort we made in improving it at the moment would wasted. So, I'm not changing it.
Unsolicited designs are definitely not disrespectful and are very much appreciated: I love to get other people's thoughts on what we can do better in all aspects of the business.