Digital Transformation for a Leading Legal Advocacy Organization

Overview

In my role as VP of Strategic Design at agencyQ, we undertook a transformative project to revitalize the digital strategy of a large legal association. This esteemed organization, dedicated to criminal justice reform and advocating for due process, resources, and justice, sought a digital overhaul.

The Challenge

Our client, a prominent member organization, faced significant digital challenges. Outdated web design and branding misalignment with their mission hampered user engagement. An impending CMS end-of-life issue impeded content creation, while navigation problems hindered member access to vital resources.

Our Discovery Approach

To comprehensively address these challenges, we initiated an extensive discovery phase that integrated several crucial elements:

Firstly, we engaged in in-depth interviews with the organization's staff and leadership to gain a profound understanding of their vision, objectives, and the obstacles they encountered. These invaluable insights formed the bedrock upon which we constructed user personas, meticulously representing the diverse membership and accommodating their distinct needs and preferences.

Simultaneously, our team rigorously assessed the existing website's user experience. Guided by heuristic principles, this evaluation enabled us to pinpoint pain points and operational inefficiencies within the platform, offering essential insights for precise and targeted enhancements.

Moreover, we painstakingly crafted journey maps, providing visual representations of user interactions and pinpointing specific areas in need of refinement. These maps played a pivotal role in our overarching strategy to optimize the overall user experience.

Additionally, to execute an effective content restructuring and establish an intuitive information navigation system, we conducted taxonomy workshops. These workshops proved instrumental in ensuring that users could effortlessly access the information they sought, ultimately contributing to a more user-friendly and efficient digital experience.

Design and Implementation

Leveraging the foundational insights from our discovery phase, we executed a structured approach to design and implementation with clear objectives:

Our foremost goal was to realign the organization's branding with its mission and member personas. This strategic maneuver aimed at creating a consistent and purposeful visual identity that seamlessly resonated with the organization's objectives and its diverse membership.

The newly designed layout was custom-tailored to meet the unique needs of user personas, emphasizing the optimization of navigation and user engagement. This meticulous approach ensured that the website delivered content that was not only relevant but also effortlessly accessible, significantly enhancing the overall user experience.

Our team conducted exhaustive SEO and content audits, fortifying the organization's content strategy. These audits identified areas for improvement and optimization, ultimately boosting the website's searchability and ensuring content was readily available to users.

A user-focused visual design was meticulously crafted to establish intuitive pathways for users to access the organization's valuable content. This design not only enhanced the website's visual appeal but also improved its functional efficiency, further elevating the overall user experience.

Results and Impact

The collaboration between our team and the organization yielded transformative results:

1. Positive Feedback: The new design received praise from the board and users, harmonizing the organization's digital presence with its mission.

2. Enhanced User Experience: The revamped site layout improved resource accessibility, member engagement, and retention.

3. Efficiency Gains: The new CMS promises significant time savings for organization staff, delivering more accurate information to members.

Conclusion

Under the strategic leadership of the VP of Strategic Design, agencyQ orchestrated a strategic combination of discovery and design efforts that effectively transformed the organization's digital landscape. The revamped web presence and enhanced user experience aligned seamlessly with the organization's mission, granting members seamless access to resources and information. This thriving partnership extended into the long term, ensuring continual enhancements and innovations driven by valuable user insights.