Is It Time To Redesign Your Website? Part 2

Originally posted on my LinkedIn profile May 2015

In Part One of this three-part blog series, I reviewed the initial assessment one needs to make before undertaking a website redesign. This is Part Two.

Part 2 -  Groundwork

So, you've determined that it is time to redesign your website, and you have identified the objectives you hope to achieve by doing so (don't overlook this piece - these will be the criteria by which you measure your success). The next phase of this project is figuring out what and whom should be part of the redesign project.

Personas

Start by getting a handle on who your website is serving. There will be multiple audiences, so it is extremely helpful to build out a set of user personas. This exercise will give you clarity into your website visitors, and provide you with a sort of touchstone against which to measure your functionality and content. Personas force you to understand your user objectives, their journey throughout the various pages of your website, how they arrived there in the first place, and what actions they will likely want to take once they get there. The typical visitors to a law firm website will include:

• Buyers of legal services (e.g., In-house Counsel and Chief Legal Officers)
• Lateral partners (attorneys considering working at the firm)
• Media (journalists and media researching and writing about the firm)
• Business professionals (administrative staff looking for positions in marketing, HR, finance, IT, and operations)

You should create a persona for each key visitor type. Here is a subset of personas we developed when redesigning my firm's website:  

Recommended reading: Smashing Magazine's Shlomo Goltz on developing user  personas.

Stakeholder Interviews

Stakeholder interviews are critical to understanding what your stakeholders hope to achieve in the redesign. Work with your executive champion to determine who should be included as a stakeholder, but be sure to include anyone who has a vested interest in the success of your site. For my website redesign, I include the Marketing department (primary content owners), the Human Resources department (our Careers pages are the second most visited pages on the site), and practice leaders. Ideally, you will also be able to interview clients to find out what they need from your website.

Each interview will take between 45 and 60 minutes, so you will need to prioritize your list of stakeholders. If at all possible, I recommend including your designers and developers in this phase, because what you hear and document might be very different from what they hear. (And when a practice leader insists on adding some random element, the designer and developer can help get to the bottom of what the true requirement is and how best it can be addressed.)

I also conducted a firmwide survey with 10 basic questions to suss out what employees (both attorneys and staff) thought needed to be included in the redesign. This goes a long way toward making people feel heard, and taking them on the redesign journey with you.

Recommended reading: Paul Boag on How to Improve Your Site Using Stakeholder Interviews.

Content Audit

This is where you measure and evaluate all of your website assets. Start by measuring the current traffic to the various sections of your website. Be careful about making automatic assumptions about low-traffic areas; maybe it isn't reflective of the desire for the content, but rather the quality of the content.

When evaluating content, ask yourself:

• Does it help you achieve your business goals?
• Does it speak to at least one of your personas?
• Is it consistent with your brand style guide?
• Is it redundant?
• Is it relevant?
• Is it optimized for search engine optimization?

If you are rewriting whole sections of your website, or creating entirely new sections, be sure to prioritize. No matter how well you plan, timelines will get tight and you may need to postpone rewriting certain elements. When that time comes, you will want to know you have been spending your efforts on the right things.And please, if I can emphasize only one thing: pare down. Users don't read websites, they skim them - so don't make them have to work for the information they seek.

Recommended reading: Anything by the Nielsen Norman Group on writing for the web.

Coming Up: Part 3 - Redesign

This will be the final post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Project Kickoff
• Wireframes
• Design
• Build
• Content Population
• Testing
• Rollout

Is It Time to Redesign Your Website? Part 1

Originally posted on my LinkedIn profile May 2015

A hot topic among my peers in digital marketing is web redesign. More specifically, what are the basic steps involved in creating and launching a new website - and how do you know you even need one? In my view, you can break a website redesign project into three phases. This post contains Phase 1.

Part 1 - Discovery

Current State Review

Do you need a full redesign or just a refresh? Start by asking yourself the following key questions:

• Are you achieving the desired results with your current website? This involves looking at your website analytics and search engine optimization (SEO), as well as that of your competitors.
• Has your branding changed recently? This isn't just a design consideration; if your new brand includes a change of tone in how you write about your products / services, then you should revisit all of your content to ensure it complies with the new organizational voice.
• Is there new technology out there (such as responsive design) that will enable you to improve the user experience? If your website is not mobile-friendly, you are missing out on an increasingly large visitor audience. And if your website won't render properly on new browser versions, then I strongly suggest a redesign. Users have no patience for a bad experience, and will move on to your competitors.
• Has your organization experienced significant restructuring? If so, you likely need to change how you promote your offerings.

If the answers to these questions point to "Yes, we need a redesign to achieve our business objectives," then you need to look inside your organization to see if you are ready. 

Capability Assessment

• Resources: Undertake an internal assessment to see if you are ready and able to begin this project. Do you have people you need, such as a project manager, a writer, a designer?
• Priorities: Are there competing priorities? Your marketing team might be leading the charge, but if you also need the support of your IT department then you must make sure they are on board with this effort.
• Budget: Determining the budget for a website redesign depends largely on the number of features you want and what kind of business you are in (ecommerce? blog-heavy? multi-language? etc. etc.) so I can't answer this one. What I will say is that you get what you pay for, so don't focus on selecting the lowest-cost option. I recommend networking with your peers and asking them for ballpark numbers on their last redesign.
• Executive champion: In two words, Get One. You will need to present a business case to the person who signs off on big projects. This person will be your go-to to help clear internal roadblocks. The most important thing you need to do for your champion is manage expectations and deliver on commitments. Don't make your champion look dumb by not keeping them informed every step along the way.

Coming Up: Part 2 -  Groundwork

(Now published.)

This will be the second post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Personas
• Stakeholder Interviews
• Content Audit

Coming Up: Part 3 - Redesign

This will be the final post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Project Kickoff
• Wireframes
• Design
• Build
• Content Population
• Testing
• Rollout

Law Firm Blogging: Types of Posts

I wrote a post last week on how to get started creating a blog for your law firm / law practice. On the subject of training attorneys on how to write for a blog, I mentioned that, as part of my attorney training curriculum, I identified categories of blog posts to help them get off the dime and start doing some writing of their own. Here they are:

The Humble Brag

Have you been quoted in an article? Use this as the cornerstone of a blog post. Include your quote as an indented highlight. Summarize a long article, and provide real-world examples that highlight the issue being discussed.

• Here is an example from attorney Scott Godes' The Corporate Insurance Blog

Personal Commentary

Tell a personal story, something that happened to you. It will make what an attorney does for their clients real, without offering opinions or legal advice.

• Best for a hot-in-the-news topic, such as legal issues that arise from a natural disaster.
• Example: A personal look at the effect of BP Oil Spill on Clam Farmers in the Florida Panhandle by Brian F. LaBovick of LaBovick & LaBovick.

Initiative Awareness

Think of these as “Did you hear the one about…” stories. Point out key legal issues, tell readers why they should care about this area of law. Quantify the risks if possible (share real losses).

• These posts are not case-specific, they promote specific interest areas of the law, and are real world stories (which people love).
• Here's a good example on Steptoe & Johnson's CyberBlog

Case Update

Give an update on the facts and progression of a current case.

• Good example: Vioxx MDL Judge Enters Judgment Against the State of Louisiana in Redhibition Claim by Russell Jackson.

Conference Wrap Up

You attended an industry conference and came away with information valuable to your clients; this type of post can be created whether or not you actually spoke at the event.

• Summarize hot topics, list out key takeaways
• Include a graphic of the conference's logo, if possible
• If you were a speaker, include your slides / video (post on SlideShare and include a link in your blog post)
• Here is digital native and brilliant attorney Erin Webb's blog post, written after a speaking slot at an industry conference (on my firm's Policyholder Informer Blog).

Aggregation

Has there been a flurry of public interest on a topic related to your area of law? Summarize the best / most interesting writing on the topic, providing links to relevant material.

• Highlight important points within a long article that tells the story on a more readable (and relevant to your clients) way.
• Positions you as the go-to resource for topical issues.
• Great example here from my firm's weekly blog post summarizing activities of State Attorneys General.

Client FAQs

Address commonly asked client questions and provide insight on how your practice would handle it.

• Example: How Much Client Contact Should Should Be Expected In Litigation? by Maxwell Kennerly of The Beasley Firm.

Top 10 Lists

These kinds of posts are always popular, and you may find bullets easier to put together than a few paragraphs of copy.

• The end of the year / beginning of the new year are ideal times for looks back/forward.
• Here's a Top 10 in Law Blogs from Jim Walker's Cruise Law News Blog.

Top Influencers

Your blog doesn't always have to consist solely of your own original content. Who are the authoritative resources in your industry? Provide your clients with resources you, the insider, find valuable for keeping on top of the issues.

• Share a post that impresses you or directly affects your clients. Your readers will appreciate the access to a resource that they might not have known about before.
• Be sure to credit the writer and link back, so your clients know where the content came from
• Check out Forbes contributing Editor Ben Kerschberg's Eight Great Law and Technology Resources post.

Legal Industry Insight

When you can help prospects understand your business -- give them sound advice on how to choose a firm / lawyer, explain the finer points of a new law -- you’re building trust and understanding. It's a great starting point for a professional relationship.

• Example from employment law firm Smith & Lo

Obviously these are not the only types of blog posts, but I've found these examples are a great way to make the whole blogging thing real to attorneys.

6 Tips for Website Pre Launch Testing

You've spent months (if not years) building that gorgeous new website. You are thisclose to launching it in all its glory, and you just. can't. wait.

But you should.

As the recent Affordable Care Act (ACA) website's technical snags have shown, thorough pre-launch testing is critical to the success of your project. But because you have been mired in the minutiae of the site for so long, it is easy to overlook even the most obvious tests.

I recently launched a Drupal-based website, and thought I'd share some of the testing protocol we followed:

Design Testing

Now, for this one I don't mean the design testing that happens earlier in the process, when you are getting feedback on the usability of your design (Paul Boag has loads of great stuff to say about this). I am talking about the review you undertake after you've done all your usability and design testing and made the necessary adjustments based upon the results. Among other things, it is a final review to ensure conformity with your design decisions.

Look at the main areas of your site to ensure they conform to your brand identity. Do your colors match your brand palette? Are accent colors and iconography used consistently across the site? Do all logos used meet guidelines for placement?  Have you secured the necessary usage rights for your imagery?

Content Testing

Your website should have a style guide. (It does, right?) Something that identifies style sheets for main pages. On our site, for example, we have attorney biographies. The content style guide for these pages includes guidelines for name use ("Use full name once, then refer to attorney by first name thereafter"); introductory paragraphs ("Single declaratory statement that calls out legal focus area"); and a taxonomy for practice naming.

On this topic, I strongly recommend rethinking how you write for the web. It is not just a digital version of your written materials, and if you keep treating web as just an extension of print you are going to lose your audience to someone who recognizes and adjusts to this fact. There are loads of great articles out there on writing for the web. Jakob Nielsen & co have a few here.

Content testing is also about:

• Content that shouldn't be there. Are your empty tabs rolling up the way they are supposed to? 
• Formatting: are Latin terms such as cum laude italicized?

You might also divide your content testing into static content vs dynamic content. If you are rolling out a brand new content management system, dynamic content needs an extra-keen eye. Transferring a database of thousands of records will always turn up weird little glitches, so you should set aside time for deeper testing. Run multiple searches on your dynamic content; are the correct records being returned? 

Functionality Testing

The objective of functionality testing is to verify the functionality of interactive elements and
hyperlinks. This area is probably the most time intensive. Every page needs to be reviewed for link testing and functionality testing. Some can be tested once and fixed globally. For example, if your logo doesn't take the user back to the home page, that is a global fix that doesn't need to be tested on every single page. Other testing, such as process testing, will require you test many pages. Process testing includes things like your calls to action. They typically involve a multi-step flow made up of if/then logic.

Other considerations of functionality testing:

• Should your links open up in a new window?
• If you use Contact Us forms, does the form get directed to the right person(s)?
• 404 error pages - what will happen should a user stumble upon a non-existent page?  Here are BusinessInsider's 20 Best 404 Error Pages of all time; why not get creative with yours?

Performance Testing

How quickly your website loads, and how it behaves throughout the visitor's stay on your site, is what performance is all about. Typical performance tests are load tests (how many concurrent users can your website handle?), stress tests, and endurance tests. I'm not going to pretend to be well-versed in what it takes to optimize performance of a website- that's why I hired a fantastic agency to worry about this stuff for me -- and here is an article they wrote about testing CSS performance, and an even geekier write up on load testing is found in this Load Impact Blog post.
 
What I did worry about was general site performance. How long will it take my pages to load? Here's a handy tool I found:

• Pingdom tests the load time of the page, and analyzes it to find bottlenecks (no surprise - imagery took up 58% of our home page load time).

 Browser Testing

I'm going to assume you've been tracking your browser visitors using your Google Webmaster Tools, and you know how users are arriving at your site. I also encourage you to be cognizant of what the environment is that your organization uses. Let's say, according to your analytics,  your site visitors overwhelmingly use Safari and Chrome, but your own organization (the folks who will visit the site on launch day and provide you with your first bits of feedback) all use IE7. Well, then I encourage you to be aware of what the site will look like (and how it will perform) on IE7. It matters.

I found browser testing to be the beast of all the testing. You can never - and I mean never - assume that because something works in Chrome (or Firefox, or IE, etc) it will work in Safari (or Firefox, or IE, etc). The  statement of work that you signed with your web design agency should have defined what browsers the site would be designed to work in. Even so, there may be elements of the design that your site will have issues with depending upon the browser. For example, our site was designed to work in IE, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. And it does. But the parallax on our home page doesn't work in IE8. Should we have designed the site differently because of this? No; but we needed to be aware of what these issues were before we launched the site.

So we tested in all the aforementioned browsers, and fixed the issues we encountered. Areas to note:

• PDFs may open differently depending on your browser, so be sure and test your PDF content
• Print this page - we encountered similar issues as with PDF downloads; each browser rendered somewhat differently
• Image alignment - there were tweaks needed with imagery on different browsers

Device Testing

What devices will your users be on when they attempt to access your website? You can start by looking at your Google Analytics for mobile % (I'd advise you look at trended numbers, because the % when we began the website redesign were much different than when we finished), but that won't tell you everything. Anyway, we all know we are screaming toward mobile, so what you really need to know is: what will my site look like on an iPhone? iPad? Galaxy? Kindle Fire? etc.

QuirkTools has a nifty little (free) tester called Screenfly. Just enter your url and it will show you
what your site looks like on a desktop (through 24" screen); tablet (Kindle, Galaxy, Nexus, iPad mini); mobile (Razr, Blackberry, iPhone, Optimus, Galaxy); custom screen size (you enter px, e.g. 1024x600); even television (480p, 720p, 1080p).

Your launch day should be a festive occasion. If you've done it right, it will be a day of exhausted smiles, shared congrats, and general revelry. BUT...even if you've tested the heck out of your site, trust me when I say you will be finding little issues for days after your launch. This is to be expected, and is totally manageable. Good luck!

Video for Law Firm Websites

I recently attended a panel discussion put on by Law Firm Media Professionals (LFMP) on effective use of video for attorney business development purposes. I gleaned some great tips from the session, and am sharing them here.