Digital transformation for a legacy legal directory
Chambers has been established for over 20 years serving the law industry with rankings and have been improving their product catalogue for the past 5 years. I’ve been able to lead on several initiatives from discovery to launch improving customers experiences throughout the process, whilst introducing new working practices to the design team and up-skilling the business in Design Process Thinking.
Digitising Products
Problem
Chambers and Partners has a captive audience which has been utilising the same method of data capture for 20 years+.
As the company moves toward a digital first approach, their current data capture engine requires updating and innovating to help the business grow into new sectors and allow for easier customer interactions.
Process
I began intensive research with a wide variety of the user base from large enterprise law firms to the individual sole traders to gather a full understanding of time, constraints and issues currently faced. Once the research had been synthesised I created a plan to help address changes to the current service flows and played this back to the senior stakeholders across the business to help align them to the product/ design process thinking.
Once we had established a plan we continued to iterate through user research and in total held 60 workshops with over 80 users in 18 months, giving us a great amount of feedback and detail.
Transforming Business Thinking
This was the first major project that was led by the design thinking process and required a lot of external teaching and buy in from other business units. It was enlightening to see a business begin to change it’s process to a iterative design focus, but this required a lot of meetings and reassurance throughout the project.
Project Outcome
The platform increased data capture by 20% throughout their submission cycles and also improved the data structure provided to allow greater usage throughout Chambers platform products.
This project was also the first Design Process completed at Chambers which helped shape the product team and give greater knowledge of the process to the wider business. Giving future iterations of products greater manoeuvrability.
Revitalising the Product Library
Problem
Chambers has rapidly developed it’s product catalogue and with new products comes user feedback and areas to improve from the initial builds. These iterations helped assist the growth and geo-expansion targets set by the business.
The products which have the greatest engagement and impact on targets where the first up such as Referee Management and Rankings Data Hub. Increasing the functionality of these products will help drive the benefits of a Chambers subscription to Law firms.
Committing to change
I was asked to iterate on products that had considerable commercial impact there therefore we needed to great deal of discovery and internal communications.
During this period of change we spoke to over 200 users spread over 4 product refreshes giving the team the ability to give a non-subjective fact based outcome.
Introducing Consistency through design
During the exploration of the product line it was clear that a design system needed to be introduced to assist designers and developers aligning to reduce bespoke code and inconsistency through each workflow and product.
I also helped introduce branding for each product and product family to increase recognition to users, whether they are new or experienced with Chambers. This tested extremely well and has now been added to the brand identity.
Project Outcome
The platform increased submissions by 20% over all of their user groups and has given products and internal systems a greater level of integrity with data. This project also changed the way Chambers delivers products and opened the door to more of a product delivery format with iterative design and strength through user input and focus.
MyAccount Overhaul
Problem
Chambers had rapidly grown their product line and applications whilst undergoing several branding refreshes. As the rapid growth began to slow it was clear that the entry point to these products needed to have the same treatment.
The MyAccount homepage is the entry point to all processes and has been left in the wake of other projects due to it’s complexity and age.
Workshops and User testing
During Discovery I held several workshops with internal colleagues to gather ideas and understand the internal struggles. These were then cross referenced against users during 3 smaller workshops followed by one large scenario based workshop based around three key areas; Navigation, user management and notifications.
We tested with over 50 users during this project and used the Beta to gather quantitive information to help guide the iterations of the MyAccount roadmap.
Navigation
It became apparent that users were struggling to with the location of certain products and items during the testing period. With this in mind I created a Global and product navigation which helps keep consistency through the users journey and opens up routes across the product line regardless of your location.
Project Outcome
The new portal has seen an increase in traffic from the smaller law firms by 20%, adding to the company’s growth targets significantly. Whilst highlighting future hygiene elements that can assist in the improving the user experience across the product library.
