Site Refresh
Mirkin & Gordon is a multigenerational Law Firm in New York, specializing in the representation of unions and large government contract employees.
In order to stay competitive and reach new users they sought a refresh and redesign of their online presence.
Role Product Design, User Experience
Scope of Work Brand Refresh, Website Refresh
Tools Adobe Illustrator, Figma, Wire-framing, Heuristic Evaluation
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Evaluating the Existing Site
In order to establish where the existing site stood with regards to best practices, we performed a Heuristic Evaluation. From ten areas of concern we zeroed in on three specifics areas which we felt would yield the greatest improvement.
VALUABLE
The product was used as a text based listing with what was essentially an FAQ, failing to utilize the tools that digital product can offer and undermining its possible value.
FINDABLE
The site employed large blocks of text almost exclusively with little formatting and no attention paid to page breaks and the composition of a given page, making it difficult to use.
CREDIBILTY
The product was outdated in terms of contemporary best practices for digital products and therefore might be off-putting to an interested user seeking legal services.
DESIGNING SOLUTIONS
Creating Value
The Problem
The product failed to utilize the tools that digital product can offer and undermedg its possible value.
Pages employed long blocks of text describing legal products, and the contact information was buried in the footer, below the scroll, and was not interactive.
Original Site
The Solution
We designed a call to action on every page that was placed in a clear and attention grabbing position. The CONTACT NOW buttons would lead to a contact form and allow the site to capture users directly instead of forcing them to use their phones or a third party app to act upon their urge to employ the firm’s services.
Redesign
Showing the Users What they Need
The Problem
The lack of formatting and the unbroken length of the text made it difficult to make it through the pages where the most valuable legal products were displayed.
In addition, two distinct user groups (those seeking legal council and those seeking Union representation) were guided to the same page.
Original Site
The Solution
With a simple redesign of the site architecture, broke the areas of specialty into two pages based on the specifics of what a user might be seeking, for instance,
it is no longer necessary for Union clients to read the entire explainer on seeking Legal Counsel service, and vice versa.
These two distinct user bases can have a direct line to action after a short formatted explainer that should answer their questions in a quick, scannable manner.
Redesigned Architecture
The Solution pt.2
We also formatted the text using bolding, divider lines, and italics where needed, to make pages that are more scannable to the user and more likely to maintain their attention while they seek their desired legal product.
A Findable Experience
Establishing Credibility
The Problem
The user establishes trust automatically with a site using visual signals before ever tuning into any actual content. It is necessary to maintain standard best practices for visual design for a D2C site in order to maintain credibility. This is especially true with legal products, where credibility is intrinsic to the strength of a brand.
The site as it stood lacked clear formatting, interactivity, and professional photography. These issues taken together signaled to the user that this site was not well maintained or credible, and would likely lead a user to either call or use a third party search engine to find their answers and products, making them susceptible to being poached by a competitor.
The Solution pt.1
Branding on the site was outmoded and didn’t serve it’s purpose. The logomark used at the top of the Nav was the only place on the site where the name of the firm was listed, and it was illegibly small.
We broke up the logotype and the watermark and used the the watermark at the footer and throughout, and relied on the logotype as the primary logo in the navigation.
The Solution pt.2
There was little use of multi-column formatting, professional photography, or legible typography. We added a clean san-serif font throughout, professional photography and columns to increase readiblity.
The overall effect is a vastly improved User Experience that establishes clear credibility.
HAND OFF
Handing off to Dev Team
File hand-off to the dev team was in the form of a fully interactive hi-fidelity Figma wireframe file with all custom assets such as fonts and new logotypes in their various usages included in a drop box file.
