It would take a few thousand posts to accurately discuss every nuanced detail regarding website design. Not only would that be an impossible feat, it would also be very boring for me. Legal website design tends to have a reputation for being very dry, plain, and boring. I tend to disagree.
The Status Quo
I'm not attempting to reinvent the legal website design wheel, nor am I suggesting my approach and style be used over another approach and style. Over the years, I have focused strictly on legal website design and legal user-specific web interfaces. During this time, I have seen legal websites which were poorly designed brochures evolve into better looking, shinier brochures. Assembly-line design firms are cranking out static, html only legal website brochures at an alarming rate. A "great-looking" legal website today looks really flashy, but lacks excitement and interest.
Integration will not work
If you slap a new coat of paint over a rusted car, the new paint job will not last very long. The same goes for adding new e-lawyering capability to existing legal website designs. Most existing legal websites are not designed nor optimized to operate as capable web applications. As I said before, I am not trying to make an already complicated idea, even more complicated. However, I must honestly say that a custom e-lawyering solution must be built and designed from the ground up.
Technical design goals
The goal of a well-designed legal website/application is not to simply "look good". There are specific goals that must be met for every successful legal web application design. We need to focus on optimizing the landing page so that the most important user goals are well-exposed. The landing page of your site is the page that potential and existing clients initially land on when accessing your application. Assembly line legal website design firms have no concept (as far as I can tell) of these types of techniques. It is a mistake to fill your landing page with paragraphs of information about your firm. I know that there are some urban legends that claim that this will help search rankings. I doubt it.
There are many other goals to meet such as persona-targeting, color selection, layout, interface design techniques etc. I will touch on many of these in later posts.
Example of "My Style" and approach to legal website design
Below is a sample landing page of a ficticious legal website design. If you examine the design, you will see that every element is designed to drive a click action by the visitor. This click action may lead to a number of additional resources for the user to explore including: case review, newsletter sign-up, e-books, articles, podcasts, etc. Toward the bottom of the page there are persona-based navigation boxes designed to entice users fitting a certain persona to click through for more information. This content based approach is backed by common-sense marketing/web marketing principles. Rarely will you retain a client on the 1st visit to your site/application.
