Web Strategies

Return on Investment

By Larry Bodine

Upgrades Needed HERE are five law firm sites that could greatly benefit from a usability audit: 1 Proskauer Rose L.L.P., appears to have copied its internal attorney manual and put it on the Web, complete with Roman numerals. It is marketing its internal organization. For example, when a visitor clicks on "Practice Groups," and goes to the "R" section, the choices are "Real Estate," "Real Estate Litigation," "Real Estate Securities and Finance Practice Group," and "Real Estate Tax." It's unclear which a client should pick if seeking a real estate lawyer. 2 Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice P.L.L.C, stops first-time visitors in their tracks with a 310-word pop-up disclaimer before you can see the home page. "The use of the information provided in these pages should not be taken as establishing any contractual or other form of attorney-client relationship between Womble Carlyle and the reader or user of this information." Translation: a "stop sign" sending visitors packing. 3 Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker L.L.P., makes visitors work to see anything. First visitors must choose between the HTML site and the Flash site (plug-in required). The Flash site has as many movies with sound as the Cineplex. It also features moving colored dots that draw your eye away from the center of the screen. The HTML site offers unclear choices such as "Tools for Success" (upcoming seminars). Visitors must drill down to get basic information like the firm address -- it's in "The Practice/Locations/City." 4 Brobeck Phleger & Harrison L.L.P., requires visitors to conduct "minesweeping" to find something clickable on the home page. Graphics cover 25 percent of the screen and are not clickable. Clicking on a cloud leads to a video commercial with sound that has no "skip" option. One home page option is "On the leading edge," and it is not clear that this leads to the "Our Services" page. 5 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom L.L.P., starts visitors off with a Flash movie with drumbeats, which takes more than two minutes to download using a 56K modem. The site uses frames for the top navigation bar, so that every single page has the URL www.skadden.com/ siteindex.htm, which means that a visitor can't bookmark or forward a particular page. It's difficult to print out, for example, the frame itself does not print out on the "Our Practice" page. --Larry Bodine

HERE'S THE HARSH news: Many law firms' Web sites don't work. It may be true that 95 percent of all large law firms have a Web site, but too many are "turning customers away from the store" by putting impediments on their Web site, making them hard to use, and ignoring how clients think.

What are are firms doing wrong? Many of the Web sites look great but are hard to use. The navigation is hidden behind "mouse-overs," visitors are slowed down by movies, or the firm's message is lost in a blizzard of text. This completely defeats the communication purpose of a Web site.

What do smart firms know? The concept of "usability" -- that navigating a Web site should be self-evident and require no explanation.

Design Over Content

The new movement is a huge change in the thinking that went into Web sites during the 1999-2000 technology boom. To impress the CEOs of Internet companies, firms developed their Web sites for technophiliacs and included every new technology that came along. During this period firms collectively poured millions of dollars into Web sites, but much of the money was jettisoned on high-tech bells and whistles that junked up the Web experience. Law firms started putting animated Flash videos on their sites, sometimes with sound. The effect was to throw a barrier in the way of the visitor. Some of the Flash videos even required downloading plug-in software, in effect adding an admission price to the visit.

Other firms crammed every conceivable choice onto their home pages, presenting a welter of options that overwhelmed viewers. Scrolling screens of text compete for attention, and moving graphics distract visitors away from what they wanted to find. What got lost was usability. Today, every law firm should analyze their sites by usability standards.

Maxims

Here are a few of the maxims to assess whether or not your Web site passes "usability" muster. Many usability rules might not be logical, but they reflect the way people use Web sites. Other rules reflect the way that major business sites, like Yahoo! and Amazon.com have built their sites, because many people are accustomed to them. All usability rules are based on common sense.

1. Don't market your organization, organize around the market.

Typical firm Web sites reflect the firm's internal organization, listing "departments" and "practice groups," just as they are listed in the firm's attorney manual. Firms typically use confusing group names like "corporate finance" and "securities," which sound the same to clients.

This is not how clients find lawyers. Corporate counsel search according to their industry and will examine sites for terms like "automotive" or "electric utility." To make Web sites usable for clients, firms need to spell out what they do according to business and industry lines. A good example is Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro.

2. Put the site ID in top left corner.

The site ID is the name of your law firm and it should be placed where people look first -- the top left corner. This is where people start reading a book and start viewing a Web site. Don't make the mistake of putting navigation bars on top of the site ID or putting the ID in another location. Take advantage of the number one spot where people look on a Web site. An example of a firm that does this just right is Piper, Marbury, Rudnick & Wolfe.

3. Get rid of the introductory movies and pop-up screens.

Many sites show videos when a visitor first arrives at the site, which doesn't add anything that the viewer will remember. These videos all have "skip introduction" buttons, which is what the designers should have done in the first place. Smart firms will delete the intro movies and let visitors get to the point. The videos take forever to download at 56K, which is still the predominant method of connecting to the Web. It's also how clients go online when they're on the road.

4. Make graphics clickable.

When people visit a site, they first look for something to click on. But often a visitor must conduct "minesweeping," clicking on pictures first and clicking text second. Don't put a graphic on your site unless it is does something; if it's just there as window dressing, delete it and put something useful in its place. Real estate on your site is just too valuable to waste.

5. Minimize animated graphics.

Moving graphics are designed to do one thing: grab your eye. They can become distracting little nuisances that eventually will annoy your visitor. What's worse is that some of the moving graphics require a special download to see and make your site something to endure. If you must have a moving graphic, at least have it point to something you want to highlight.

6. Design for the disabled.

In the U.S. alone there are 30-plus million people who have a disability that makes it difficult to use a computer. That's too large a client base to ignore. Disabled clients are very loyal once they find a law firm that can accommodate their needs. For example, blind users have Web browsers that turn text into sound, essentially reading the screen to them, so every graphic should have an ALT tag describing it. Text should be "chunked" into short paragraphs with a topic sentence. Test how well your site accommodates the disabled at Bobby 3.2.

7. The recruiting section shouldn't disconnect from your main site.

Many firms turn designers loose on their recruiting section, figuring that tech-savvy law students want pizzazz. However, a jazzy recruiting section for a traditional law firm Web site will look like a Speedo on an old man. It's not something you want to see. Further, it sends the message that the recruiting site is the lure, and the main site is what the firm is really like.

8. Label links obviously.

Links to other pages in the site should be called by familiar terms. For example, don't offer a "Tools for Success" link for "seminars." Don't call a link "Legal Edge" if it's really the "Events and News" page. Vedder Price calls its links by appropriate names.

9. Every page should be printable.

Web sites shouldn't be so wide that the right edge is cut off when people print it out. Clients hate that. It's harder to read text on a computer screen than it is on a piece of paper, and clients want to be able to print out what they see. Set the dimensions of your site at no more than 600 pixels wide, which will print out nicely. Some sites offer a "print friendly" button on their pages, which is adequate, but why not make the page printable in the first place. Pages on the Gardner, Carton & Douglas site print out easily.

Larry Bodine is a marketing and Web consultant, based in Glen Ellyn, Ill.