Practical Law

PROJECT INFO

Overview
Practical Law Company was UK’s leading legal know how online service. It provided rigorous peer reviewed legal resources, such as practice notes, current awareness and standard documents to help it’s customers work smarter and advise with confidence.
I was a member of the in-house IT research and development team until Practical Law Company was acquired by Thomson Reuters and became Thomson Reuters Practical Law.
My Role
At PLC I was responsible for delivering the best practice user experience across a variety of Practical Law Company’s online solutions and services for in-house lawyers and private practice legal practitioners. I was managing all aspects of UX deliverables within the product’s life cycle:  the creative ‘ideation’ development process, designing and facilitating workshops that drove out customer and business requirements, rapid prototyping, usability testing, ux design assets. Furthermore I was responsible for evangelising user-centred design across PLC business units and integrating UCD methodologies within the company’s software delivery process – Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM).
Redesign search user experience
PLC identified search as the primary route through the PLC website and online products. Integrating enterprise search technology Google Search Appliance (GSA) would make it easier for customers to find relevant content for their needs and increase usage of PLC services and products. My responsibility was to redesign the old UI to meet the standard of new technology and UX best practice.
Below is the old PLC search user interface.
Understanding user and user's behaviour
I used UX research methodology such as focus groups, contextual enquiries, persona archetypes to understand how customers will interact and benefit from the new search design.
User journeys
Task analysis and user research helped to form the detailed user journeys. Annotated user flow would outline a specific point of entry and covers all the steps the user must take to reach a certain outcome.
Prototype and user testing
Using interactive prototypes and various user testing techniques I iterated designs to emphasize the most useful features that new technology can offer. My UX approach helped identify following key features: intelligent suggestion ‘as you type’, faceted filtering and sorting options and enhanced search results list.
Final product and legacy
The redesigned search proved to be a success with PLC customers. Users saved vital research time, benefited from a user friendly search function, relevant content and usable materials. Moreover it is still in use as one of the key features of Thomson Reuters Practical Law online services.
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