Law firms are often overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information involved in a legal matter. Be it locating documents, tracking financials, or remembering whom to call, the volume of data can quickly separate attorneys from doing what they're hired to do - offer sound legal advice.

After working with our research team to identify and interview corporate and external attorneys and their staff, we identified the data our users would like to have available quickly. From this list, we prioritized the data to develop a hierarchy for a "matter page."

With our research, I set several rules to inform my design direction.

• Separate the two kinds of data and give them consistent placement so users can quickly locate data as they move between matters

• Allow the content to tell a story using notes, contacts, documents, and key dates.

• Provide a few "aha" moments that bring the user some joy

• Always make it accessible

• Build upon a design system to assure consistency and efficiency

Research

Understanding the user's mental model is used to inform, validate or iterate the design of a new product or feature. To understand this mental model, I worked with the research team to develop a set of cards, each representing a specific content or feature. With these cards, we asked users to group them into groups that made sense.

Journey Map

Coupled with what we learned from card sorting and a handful of interviews, I built a mini journey map focusing on this new application's main page. In this instance, a journey map is needed to visually represent a customer's experiences and interactions from this central point.

I use the term journey map loosely, but in this case, we needed the vision to put in front of potential clients to see how close we were to solving their problems.

Prototype

Our next step was to build a "working" prototype to put in front of our customers for their reactions. To do this effectively, we needed to have a few objectives for the participants to accomplish instead of just pulling back the proverbial curtain and getting a subjective opinion.

1. Locate the timeline for the Exclusivity Agreement.

• When is this scheduled to be completed?

• Who's working on this document?

• How much time has been billed?

1. Locate Kendra Olson's contact information.

2. Change the priority of the Due diligence document.

With the answers from these and a few additional questions, we would learn if we met the card-sorting priorities and help to determine our next steps.

Outcome

For the most part, the prototype was successful and aligned well with our customer's expectations. They were genuinely pleased with the amount of content in one place, which saved them time, and most importantly, they could respond to their client's needs promptly without searching through various systems.

As with most designs, less is more, and through the research, we learned that though the calendar was necessary, it didn't warrant the "hero" spot on the page. Instead, this area needed to focus on the matter description and notes. We also learned that firms and their clients are driven by "Key dates," and we need to focus content around that idea.

Responsive design

In all my product designs, I think "mobile first" as it allows me to prioritize important content and create a streamlined, user-friendly design. Considering mobile first makes future scaling and redesigns more efficient and can often supersede the need to build a separate application.