Every time you visit a website, you make a microsecond judgment about whether or not staying on it is worth your time. Anything and everything is a potential deterrent to keeping your attention on a webpage, including too many popup ads, intrusive chatbots, overly long load times, hard-to-find contact forms, and irrelevant or outdated content.
Nowhere is a user’s trust more important than in the legal industry, where locating a reliable lawyer who exudes trustworthiness is imperative to business. Needless to say, great UX design can play a pivotal role in influencing who a user is inclined to trust for legal help. Solid UX site design is also crucial to increase the likelihood of client discovery and retention, improve the rate of positive legal case outcomes, and create a better space for legal practice management.
Since the pandemic, law firms have found it necessary to use web integrations such as signature software, video conferencing software, and remote work support software—so it’s no wonder UX design has come to the forefront of the legal industry. Let’s look at the top 6 ways UX design seeks to improve the legal industry.
1. Increases User Retention Rates
User experience design is primarily focused on creating a digital experience users will enjoy and intuitively understand, making it easier for a website or application to accomplish its goal— be it converting users into customers, clients, or subscribers. By investing in better site UX, legal professionals can expect to see larger returns in conversion rates.
Furthermore, by focusing on the aspects of a site that convert users into clients, such as contact forms, testimonials, live chat features, load times, and content, UX designers also seek to provide solutions to the most common reasons why users might click away from a website.
2. Makes Your Practice More Discoverable to Potential Clients
The entire user experience is about more than how a website makes a person feel— it’s also about attracting a user to your website in the first place. And key among the things that will attract people to your website? SEO rankings.
Whereas a few years ago, search engines didn’t account for ranking sites based on user experience metrics such as bounce rate, time on site, loading time, and mobile responsiveness, today’s search engine metrics rely heavily on a variety of UX metrics. And while SEO terms and active links are still critical factors in determining search engine rankings, without considering your site’s performance, your discoverability to potential clients will likely suffer in return.
3. Provides a Variety of Helpful, Informative Content to Potential Clients
It may be cliché, but the phrase “content is king” is invariably true when it comes to SEO rankings and user retention rates. Focusing on providing a variety of high-quality legal content will not only help boost your SEO status but will also help inform your audience and answer questions they may have about the legal process, reducing the number of support requests you receive.
Content serves multiple functions, but key among them is keeping your users on your main website longer, building trust to drive potential client conversion, and increasing foot traffic to your site through improved search engine rankings.
4. Conveys an Image of Professionalism for Your Business
Another major benefit of investing in a UX design team is the ability to create and solidify a brand image for your firm. Poor UX design can diminish already fragile trust in users whose opinions on the legal industry may lack faith. Still, good UX builds trust by conveying a brand image of expertise, reliability, and knowledge.
When a user feels that a law firm has devoted time, energy, and money to creating an enjoyable web experience, they’re more inclined to believe their services will also reflect their website. Furthermore, having a coherent brand image helps users identify and remember your company, making it easier to recall your firm when they need legal help.
5. It Makes It Easy for Users to Contact You
UX design places a significant emphasis on making it intuitive and seamless for users to find the information they need quickly. In the legal world, nothing is more important for potential clients than finding an efficient, simple way of contacting a live person, be it through a form, email address, phone number, or live chat button.
By creating an easily navigable website and designing a clear and concise site hierarchy, UX designers make crucial functions like contact forms as simple as possible to locate. Carefully placed signifiers help users quickly discover the functions of a page and guide them on how to perform tasks, such as clicking on a button, filling out a form, etc. Additionally, well-thought-out site architecture makes a user’s journey more efficient and reduces the risk of clicking off your site.
6. Supports Security
Although it’s undoubtedly crucial for legal websites, cybersecurity is even more pressing for legal software, conferencing applications, and site plugins, making it one of the foremost concerns for UX designers as well. Protecting data and private information is vital for a field that often depends on third-party apps for signing legal documents, business contracts, or accessing financial information. However, excessive login information and passwords may make using these apps a hassle, which is where UX designers come in to implement user-friendly solutions that still promote best security practices.
Moreover, UX designers can help integrate third-party plugins into websites that benefit employees and users alike, such as video conferencing tools or live chat options. On the backend, UX designers can implement data analytics and processing tools to make collecting metric data more friendly for employees.
Final Thoughts
Even though the legal industry may not be the most immediate thing you think of when it comes to UX design, the implementation of solid UX infrastructure is far more pressing than it may initially seem. In a field where gaining a client’s trust means everything, a legal company’s web presence must convey a positive, reassuring experience to the user.
Additionally, investing in UX design ensures your site is up-to-date with the latest in SEO trends and web-based best practices ensuring that it stays functional and adaptable well into the foreseeable future.
