St John’s Buildings is one of the largest chambers in the country, spread over four sites and in four cities in northwest England. Having prided themselves on innovation and on being leaders in legal technology, they wanted to set themselves apart by innovating digitally. A once ‘ahead of the curve’ website design, seven years on, felt dated and in need of a refresh.
Project goals
Headline goals for the project included:
- Inclusivity & accessibility – a cleaner and easier-to-read website;
- Content management – to make all content easily accessible;
- Clearer calls to action and a more efficient user journey;
- Refining and modernising the St John’s Buildings logo.
Solutions
The fragmented homepage, with its series of densely populated boxes, was replaced with striking video footage of the four city locations. The previous carousel that introduced the four locations required user engagement and/or patience; the new solution allows the content to unfold before you.
User journeys & calls-to-action
A combination of opening up the homepage and lightening the website design resulted in a much cleaner, more accessible and pleasurable user experience. Although the somewhat compact previous homepage ensured all content was a click (or several) away, this meant the user journey became quite intense as the various options competed on the screen before you. The new layout takes the user on a journey through the site’s content, signposting areas of interest along the way. Additionally, the News section allows chambers to promote whatever they need to on the homepage.
The introduction of clear calls-to-action (CTAs) promotes the website’s primary purpose, to connect users to the chambers’ members. The ‘Book a barrister’ button is consistently positioned in the top right of the screen throughout the website, emphasising the approachable nature of chambers and ensuring the user can make contact wherever they are on their journey.
Imagery
Chambers were particularly keen to avoid the standard legal or business stock imagery, wanting something that would truly represent them. Aerial footage of the four city locations gave the project a unique and hyper relevant face.
Filtering & tagging
Filtering information is important on any chambers website but particularly so when you have 216 barristers and four locations; we implemented the superfast Algolia search engine to make this easy. In addition, cross-referencing is used throughout the site to ensure people, news, events, practice areas and other content are all linked and accessible regardless of where you are on the site.
Brand refinement
A physical move was simultaneously planned, so a logo and brand refinement project sat happily alongside the website redesign, with hard copy materials being updated across the board. The refined logo is better balanced with the figurative and typographic elements now having equal weight. The overall effect is more impactful and it sits well in a much wider variety of applications.