ADVANCES IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
By Fred J.Cohen
Founder and CEO, Amicus Creative Media
S
teve Jobs famously said
“Design is not just what it
looks like and feels like.
Design is how it works.” One area
where design and technology
are particularly intertwined is
the web, where advances in
browsers and development tools
have opened up opportunities for
a more engaging and fluid user
experience. If you have a website,
you’ve likely been told a few core
“rules” that you should abide by for
maximum effectiveness, but in the
face of recent advances many of
these rules have lost their validity.
Old
Rule:
Keep
the
important stuff above the fold
We’ve all heard this golden rule
which is based on the premise
that people don’t want to scroll
down when they land on your
site so you should try to keep the
important elements up at the top of
the webpage. This rule, however,
has lost much of its merit as the
devices used to surf the web have
changed. When visiting a site
with a smart phone or tablet, one
of the very first things that many
people do is scroll down; after all
it takes just the swipe of a finger.
New Rule: Embrace stylized pages
that feature information neatly
organized in various sections. These
sections should employ active
elements such as parallax scrolling
or different colored backgrounds
which more effectively break up the
content and enable users to digest
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CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL
the information and easily navigate
around the site. The active sections,
when properly designed, can also
add visual appeal and intrigue to
the user experience.
Old Rule: Stick with traditional
colors
to
give
your
site
a
more
professional
feel
If you were to look at a large sample
of attorney websites, you’d likely
find that most share the s ame
color schemes. They are blue and
gray, brown and gold or black and
white. For years, firms stuck with
these colors because they were
thought to be more professional.
New Rule: Don’t be afraid to
incorporate color and stand out in
the crowded marketplace. A unique
color scheme can shape the entire
design and will immediately set a
tone for new visitors. While it’s okay
to use a toned down or neutral hue
for your primary color, consider
going bold with your accent color.
Bright accent colors, like orange
or even lime green, create visual
intrigue and add another level of
depth to the design
Old Rule: Content is Far
More Important than Design
It’s true that in many ways “content
is king.” High-quality, frequentlyupdated copy is necessary to
engage visitors and to establish
credibility with the search engines,
but content can’t exist independent
of design and user experience.
For years, it was popular for
Winter 2015
legal sites to have small graphic
headers followed by paragraph
upon paragraph of copy. The legal
industry is finally shifting away from
creating sites with content-overload
and instead creating sites that
focus on getting visitors to the right
information, not all information.
New Rule: Focus on creating a
“yellow brick road” that will lead
your visitors to the information
that they want to see with the use
of intuitive navigation menus that
are built throughout the pages in
your site (again stylized sectioned
pages can help to accomplish this).
You must also consider that less
is more when reading copy on the
small screen of a phone; focus on
crafting short blurbs that provide
value along with “read more” links
that take visitors to a more complete
resource. Videos are also great and
tend to lead to higher conversion
rates.
To see some legal sites that have
embraced new design trends and
get inspired, check out the winners of
“Outstanding Website for the Legal
Industry” in the 2015 WebAwards
competition or Lawyerist’s popular
“Best Law-Firm Websites” article.
About
the
Author:
Fred J. Cohen, JD, is the founder
and CEO of Amicus Creative Media,
an award-winning attorney web
design and marketing company,
and a NACBA Member Benefit
Partner. Visit www.amicuscreative.
com/nacba to learn more about
National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys