The Bar Council’s new web platform had to incorporate three existing sites: The Bar Council, Young Bar Hub and the Employed Bar Hub.
Clear navigation was paramount to the new website which would now serve the needs of several audiences including barristers, other chambers staff, students, policymakers, press, other legal organisations as well as the general public.
Built using Pixl8’s flexible digital platform Preside, the design focus was on rationalising where content could be found by making clearer user journeys across the website.
On top of greater functionality, the new website required greater use of rich media such as video, while also being mobile friendly and designed to compliment and highlight the Bar Council brand.
The previous website was not easily searchable and users were sometimes frustrated. With a refined and easy to use resource library in place, the Bar Council is now able to provide searchable keyword tagged content. This results in being able to quickly find the documents they require.
Design workshops enable us to discover an organisation’s aspirations and ambitions for its website. By working collaboratively with the client, they are at the center of the design process. With the Bar Council, we held a workshop where we gave their team a list of 20 websites to review swiftly. This information gave our Pixl8 Design team recurring positive elements of the top scoring websites to help deliver prototype web design concepts.
To fully understand the Bar Council’s audience and their needs, Pixl8 ran tailored workshops with carefully selected end-users. From law students through to barristers, we took members through a series of questions and examples of how the new website could function for them. We then used their feedback to build navigational paths for those core Bar Council personas.
The Bar Council’s new website required an area for witnesses to access training scheme video content. We built a secure password protected page for the website, which now enables individual users to confirm they have completed their required training.
Ensuring the Bar Council’s website remains on brand, Pixl8 developed bespoke style guidelines so their team can continue to deliver consistent, clear and engaging content for their audience.
Content is king- but only if you can find it. Great navigational structure is one thing, but if section headings are ambiguous, confusion reigns, content is still hard to find and users get frustrated. We carried out a series of user tests to see how easy it was for members to find what they were looking for.
The results of this allowed us to make additional amendments to key wording, meaning we were able to further improve the usability and functionality of the website.
For the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE).
Why choose Pixl8? We deliver powerful thoughtful design solutions to reach hearts and minds online.
