Delivery Of Basic Data Critical In Cyberworld
By K. William Kyros, Esq.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly- February 14, 2000Studies consistently show that users of the Internet are very impatient. The typical Internet user seeking information will ignore fancy design elements, navigation bars and anything that does not provide relevant information.
Users who do not understand the way a site is designed generally do not stop to learn the site's intricacies. If the desired content is not on a page, the user may become impatient and use the back button of the browser after a few seconds.
If this behavior is true for users of e-commerce sites who are looking for plane tickets and DVD players, it may even be more true for busy lawyers and consumers of legal services who are looking at law firm Web sites.
So I decided to test several Web sites of prominent Boston law firms to see how they fared delivering basic information to this particular user. In testing the sites, I assumed the role of an impatient lawyer looking for contact information on associates.
I started at Burns & Levinson (www.burnslevinson.com), which I found easily without knowing the specific URL address.
The Burns & Levinson home page loads quickly and lists 11 areas of the site. The second area is just what I'm looking for: "Attorney Profiles."
I click on the link and find all the partners and associates listed alphabetically on one page. There is no need to scroll, as the listings are arrayed so that they are visible on a single screen.
The listings are in small type but I see the lawyer I'm looking for immediately. Another click and the attorney's phone number and e-mail are displayed at the top of his profile. A small black-and-white photo is framed to the right of the screen.
My task is accomplished in under two minutes with little effort.
By far the most interesting attorney profiles page I encounter is at Dwyer & Collora's site (www.dwyercollora.com), which I also have no trouble locating.
Eschewing the rectangular black-and-white photo of most sites, the attorneys here get a full-length color portrait (although most people are cut off at the knees).
Next to each photo is a quote (the text is a rather loud purple) summarizing the attorney's perspective on his or her practice area. E-mail and phone numbers are included, followed by a basic biography.
Again, my task has been completed quickly. In addition, I will remember the unique feel of the site.
Choate, Hall & Stewart has a site that will get you where you want to go, but I found that it took a little more persistence.
Not knowing the actual firm address, I did what I suspect a lot of people would do. I typed "www.choatehallstewart.com" and hoped for the best. But I came up empty. "Unable to locate server," I was told. So I tried "choatehall.com" again, no luck. On the third attempt, I try "choate.com" and that does the trick. (Since the first two addresses don't appear to be taken, if I was Choate, Hall I'd be inclined to invest $140 to purchase the other two names as well, so I as not to cause unnecessary frustration for people.)
Once at the Choate, Hall site, I find that it offers nine choices. Unfortunately for me, none of the choices resembles attorney profiles. The closest is "Search Our Site." So I go to the search page and type "attorneys"; 20 results are returned.
The first result is an unavailable document, the second result is the name of an attorney at the firm. I see a link that advises "click here for help on searching." I click for help and discover "File not found." Not hopeful of success, I start over and type the name of a woman I know to be an associate at the firm.
Again 20 results are returned, all titled "Choate, Hall and Stewart." I click on the first result and to my surprise I find the woman I'm looking for. However, there's no e-mail address. If I want to e-mail the lawyer I need to fill out a form in order to accomplish that task.
Like Choate, Hall, the fourth law firm I visit, Gadsby & Hannah, has a site that is not easy to stumble upon if you're just guessing the URL address.
The Gasby site (www.ghlaw.com) uses a framed top banner, a bottom-aligned navigation bar and a left-justified navigation rail for "Practice Areas," which together take up about 70 percent of my screen.
I find the attorney listings button on the bottom bar. Clicking on it opens a window within the site that lists attorneys alphabetically as well as by practice area. Although I can find the attorneys all right, the listings are squeezed into a small window of the remaining 30 percent of the screen.
When I click on a name I am brought to a biography and, often, a black-and-white photo. The profiles are clear but, because of the way the site is designed, I have to scroll down to read all the biographical information. I would have preferred if the information had been visible on a single screen.
The listings appearing inside this space also use what are known as "anchored links" links that place the user at various points on an individual page. The purpose of anchored links is to make it easy to navigate long pages, but the effect here might generate a bit of confusion for some users and result in some unnecessary scrolling.
In sum, all four of the law firm sites I visited were competently designed and provided basic information, but the user experience did vary (at least for this user). Ultimately, my task was accomplished each time but I encountered a few bumps in the road.
These sites demonstrate a few principles that law firms of all sizes might want to consider in creating and reviewing their Web sites:
* Try to make things as easy on the user as possible by minimizing the amount of scrolling that has to be done.
* Use a Web address, wherever possible, that is obvious and, if your address isn't obvious, see if other addresses people might try when they are guessing are available. If so, buy them. (It's quite cheap.)
* Organize your information in a fashion that makes sense to the first-time user so that someone who visits your site looking for basic information (like an attorney who works there) doesn't get frustrated and can find the information quickly.
By emphasizing the delivery of content in their Web sites and structuring them so that finding needed information is hassle-free, law firms can maximize the usefulness of their sites and present themselves in a fashion that will be most likely to enhance future business relationships and solidify existing ones.
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K. William Kyros is president of Lawyer Views, a Boston company that designs sites specifically geared toward law firms.
Reprinted with permission of Lawyers Weekly.
