Baker, Curtis, & Schwartz, P.C.
Baker, Curtis, & Schwartz, P.C.
👤About
Baker, Curtis, and Schwartz LP is an employment lawyer based in California. They offer a variety of services to their clients surrounding employment law.
Role: UI/UX Designer + Developer
Tools Used: Adobe XD
Responsibilities: User Research, Image Selection, Design
🎯Objective
The objective of the project is to create a more a user-friendly and organized website that effectively showcases the various services provided by the law firm.
Deliverables for this project:
The main deliverable for this project is a fully redesigned website with optimized navigation. Users should be able to easily locate the information they seek, such as details about the firm's services, expertise, and contact information.
📛Problem
The project aimed to address the challenge of limited navigation options and improve the user experience on the website as users were getting lost in the internal pages which was causing a high bounce rate.
📋My Approach
Due to the absence of access to website analytics, my approach was to conduct user interviews to gather insights on user perceptions and experiences with the site. By conducting usability testing, I aimed to assess the user experience and determine whether it aligned with the client's expectations. Additionally, I created paper wireframes to explore potential layouts and navigation options for the new design.
Proposed wireframe of internal service page
🔑Key Findings
The key findings revealed through user testing underscored the significance of the page redesigns in resolving navigation issues on the website. Users consistently expressed frustration with the existing navigation structure, particularly in accessing information about different services. However, with the introduction of the redesigned pages, featuring improved navigation elements and layout, users appreciated the enhanced clarity and ease of finding relevant information.
🧩 Solutions
To address the navigation issues, I started generating solutions through the creation of a paper wireframe. The wireframe explored various navigation options and ultimately settled on a main navigation menu, secondary navigation highlighting key service areas, and submenus within internal pages for each key service area. This approach aimed to provide users with clearer pathways to access specific services of interest. Below are a few of the final approved solutions for the Baker, Curtis, Schwartz, P.C. website.
🚫 Header and Main Navigation Before
The existing website has issues with it’s main navigation that was leaving users confused. The services were not listed in the main navigation and there was a link at the top of the navigation to go to the firm’s LinkedIn page. I personally do not recommend this practice because it is almost an immediate invite to leave as the user comes to the site.
✅ Header and Main Navigation Solution
My solution for this problem was to move the service menu up beneath the main page navigation and remove the LinkedIn link from the header and move to the footer of the website so it could potentially lead users to spend more time on the page learning about the law firm.
🚫 Service Page Layout Before
The service page layout builds upon the issues listed above with the main navigation. The service sub page menu was beneath the page content which would require a few scrolls for the user to see.
✅Service Page Layout Solution
My solution for the internal service pages was to move the submenu up to act like a sidebar, provide an introduction to the contact form, and moving the social link to the footer.
🚫 About Page Layout Before
The about page layout before did offer a good hierarchy of information by using headers to separate content, but it did not have a lot of visual appeal as it was content heavy and didn’t command a lot of the user’s attention.
✅ About Page Layout Solution
The solution for the about page included using the existing content hierarchy but adding some more visual appeal to break up the long text offering thumbnails of the attorney’s headshots.
🚫 Attorney Page Layout Before
The attorney profile pages had an extensive vertical layout with an abundance of whitespace, resulting in narrow content sections. This composition made the page appear lengthy and could benefit from a more balanced distribution of content to optimize user experience.
✅ Attorney Page Layout Solution
The solution for the profile pages was to condense the content in a way that made the page appear balanced. I removed the banner image and added a simple 4:3 ratio image beside the attorney’s information and condensed the biographical, professional accomplishments, and rewards into an accordion.
🏆Challenges / Lessons Learned
One of the challenges encountered was the requirement to make the site easier to navigate using both a main menu and a sidebar menu, without removing or reorganizing any existing content. This constraint influenced my solution to focus on adding internal page sidebar menus that related to the content on those pages, allowing users to easily navigate within a specific service area without disrupting the overall content organization.
