When national corporate law firm Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP asked us to resolve a select list of website issues they faced on mobile devices, we saw an opportunity to provide deeper solutions that would help transform the user experience on the site as a whole and the quality of their overall presentation in a multi-phase effort.
Over the course of many years, piecemeal solutions contributed by various web contractors had taken its toll on their site’s overall user experience. In order to upgrade the expansive existing site without starting from scratch, we conducted a comprehensive audit to identify remediation solutions for their current layout and rendering issues across various screen sizes, as well as inconsistencies in UX design patterns. We also had suggestions for visually enhancing the existing site to make it more contemporary in terms of user expectations, brand strategy, and typography — as well as cleaning up taxonomy and structures to eliminate circular references and duplicate information.
Because the firm was in the process of a merger mid-project, we created a prominent digital merger announcement, suggested a content strategy to unify content from the existing firms, and found ways to visually align overarching design elements with the new branding across the site.
Front-end improvements began with the Locations section, where we streamlined the layout and incorporated Google pin icons showing each of their 17 offices in context on Google Maps. Upgrades to the professional search tool include the ability for viewers to now search for attorneys by name, title, office, area of expertise, industry, law school, and/or state bar admission. In addition, bio pages were transformed into more effective marketing tools with smartly organized biographical details, published professional works, and contact information — allowing visitors to save an attorney’s virtual contact file, or electronic business card, directly from their browser.
The expansive Knowledge Center, a collection of articles, blog entries, and press releases, had gotten unwieldy over the years, so we consolidated the content, streamlined navigation, and made cross-referencing of information more intuitive. Finally, we created a flexible multi-use page template that can be used on an ongoing basis for a variety of content types.
The new site is now more user-friendly and visually pleasing — in a way that feels far more inviting than most of the firm’s peers in the law industry — with digital solutions that ensure consistency across all desktop, tablet, and mobile viewports.
