Specialist website design for Parklane Plowden Chambers – Case Study

We were recently asked to provide specialist website design and development services to help bring the Parklane Plowden Chambers up-to-date, and complement their new branding and PR strategy. Here’s a quick look at their requirements, and how we designed a fit-for-purpose website to meet them…

The brief

Collaborating with their branding agency, Brand 8, and their PR agency, XXXXXX, we were tasked with designing and developing a website that would:

• Reflect the new brand
• Increase the Chambers’ national visibility
• Reposition the Chambers as one of the UK’s leading sets
• Improve user journey/user experience
• Provide easier internal management
• Include a new platform in-line with their new PR and communications strategy
• Remove existing technical errors
• Allow users to find the right barrister easily and search by expertise
• Create a platform that would give all barristers equal visibility/selection opportunities

What we did

Using our tried, tested and trusted website design and development methodology and through close liaison with the Chambers’ other suppliers, we looked at the advancements and advancements we could make to achieve the items on their ‘hit list’.

Where needed, options where presented for discussion to all parties, helping us to hone-in on the key details and ensure decisions were approved across the board. We also researched other similar websites and media outlets (such as the BBC and online broadsheet publications) to help inform the overall design in terms of their PR needs.

We investigated their current Content Management System (CMS), which was a bespoke solution, and listened to the problems they were facing with its use. We considered a range of open-source alternatives and settled on WordPress as their new CMS, for its ease-of-use and flexibility.

Running the website design and build process alongside the overall re-branding work, we utilised the new brand colours and logo device, scoped out the full specifications and started to put together the wireframes and information architecture for both desktop and mobile versions of the website.

Once we’d got these essential steps in place and approved by the client, it was time to start the build! With the user journey, functionality and management all in place, we inserted video, images and graphics and pulled everything together ready for testing and launch.

The results

Picking up on their strapline ‘positive difference’, we positioned their communications section (usually ‘blog’ or ‘news’) as ‘positive thinking’ and created a PR and journalist-friendly platform that’s easy to navigate according to media type and theme.

To satisfy the ‘equal billing’ requirements, the barrister search function also offers the ability to filter results by specialism, sort results and even shortlist favoured options.

With a new CMS for in-house management, the new branding and a faster, smarter and more modern online presence, the client has already received great feedback and more enquiries thanks to our specialist website design and build services.