SWLAW Website Redesign
A redesign of the Southwestern Law School Website.
UX
UI
Product Design
AI
Project Overview
Client: Southwestern Law School
Project Type: UX/UI
Industry: Higher Education, Law School
Tools: Figma, ChaptGPT
My Role: Lead UX/UI Designer
CONTEXT
Rebranding To Fit The Modern Era
Southwestern Law School has recently undergone a rebranding. To match this, I was given the job of rebranding the website to improve the user journey and better target our key user group, prospective students.
PROBLEM
An Outdated Website With High Bounce Rates
There are many problems with the current site, but the main one is a lack of hierarchy/clear direction.
RESEARCH
Discovering The Core Users
Focus Group Part 1
I arranged a focus group consisting of 10 first and second-year students to ask them about their process of researching the school before they applied. Due to budget and security constraints, we were only able to gather participants from our existing student body. Some of the insights we found were that they:
Strongly disliked the confusing split navigation bars
Were unable to quickly locate information
Found competitors had better navigation and hierarchy
Couldn't differentiate sections and avoided interacting with them
Opted to use Google search rather than navigate the site
Past Design- Major Problems
Split navigation bars confuse almost 100% of users.
Zero hierarchy creates unclear functions and sections.
DESIGN PROCESS
Multiple Iterations and Testing Phases
Before I began, there wasn't a designer on the team who was versed in Figma. As the sole UX/UI designer, I taught myself the program and continued to iterate and conduct multiple rounds of testing.
Wireframes
Because we were starting with a previous version, we had a general idea of what we wanted on the page. My job was to understand how to iterate upon that and improve. My process started with brainstorming what else could be added to the site. Through our research, we determined things that prospective students would want to see on our website.
Sections to include:
Strong Hero image with apply and virtual tour CTA's• Clear navigation bar with current students and future students tabs
Appealing stats that make the school stand out
All the J.D. programs listed out clearly
Newsroom section of relevant events pertaining to the school
Meet the Faculty section, highlighting popular faculty members• Featured events for prospective students
My Approach
Sketching out wireframes on paper for the sections allowed me to quickly iterate and imagine how the whole site might come together. From here, I was able to produce digital wireframes to present to my CMO for feedback.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
After producing a low-fidelity prototype and presenting it to the CMO and other stakeholders, I received valuable insights, implemented requested changes, and began designing a High-Fidelity Prototype.
High-Fidelity Prototype Part 1
I quickly noticed some pain points as I worked on the received notes and rendered the designs further. I had to figure out a way to find a balance between the two designs.
Some pain points we ran into were:
Cutting down navigation bar of too many tabs left it more confusing
Having to click items for more info did not help streamline the process
The admissions event section needed multiple events
Visually simplifying sections did not improve the user flow
Focus Group Part 2
After iterating more on the prototype, I reached the point where I was ready to receive feedback from our users. This focus group consisted of new students who had not participated in the first one. We received a lot of good insights from these users and I was able to produce a nearly finished design.
High-Fidelity Prototype Part 2
Finally, with all the accumulated data, I was able to go back to my design and address all the faults that were discovered. I decided to approach this final design in a different way, by focusing on a user journey for the prospective students themselves and their journey to apply to the school.
SOLUTION
A Clean Website With A Clear User Journey for Prospective Students
Southwestern Law School has a 3rd party company of engineers that I was able to meet with and discuss the next steps of launching this page. While working on this project, I had to understand the limitations of our capabilities and design within the scope of our budget. As the design for this project is nearing its last stages, we are preparing for the next steps to launch this site before the end of the year.