The ABA Journal recently published an article talking about "responsive web design" and how it might help your law firm site be more effective. Your law firm website may very well be the first encounter that prospective clients have with your firm. You want their experience to be positive and informative, not frustrating. Responsive design can help achieve that positive experience.
What is Responsive Design Anyway?
Responsive design means coding a website to allow it to be viewed in a different format on an iPhone, Android, or tablet device. Without getting into the boring details, a programmer incorporates a fluid design where the code can detect the browser being used to view the site and deliver customized viewing for that specific device.
Social Driver recently published a list of the
top 50 responsive web designs. To get a feel for this, view the following websites on as many different devices as possible. It is amazing to see how the designers incorporated fluid layout to render perfectly in any setting.
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The National Society of Collegiate Scholars
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The Haberdash Fox
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Disney
For another responsively designed site, take a look at ICLE’s recently redesigned
My Resources page on a few different devices to get an idea of how content responds to the various sizes. As your browser window gets smaller, the content adjusts to the optimal format. Navigation is condensed into a single button, several columns stack to become one, text becomes larger, and less essential information collapses to keep scrolling to a minimum. (You can also see this by adjusting the size of your browser window on your computer screen, instead of looking at different devices.)
Why Should My Firm's Site Incorporate Responsive Design?
Responsive design is not just for the big firms anymore. And this kind of design is not just for the look and feel of your website; there is a correlation between a prospective client retaining your services and how they experience your website for the first time.
Entrepreneur magazine states that nearly half of all U.S. adults use a smartphone. 90% of those people use their smartphone to check email and surf the web. Shockingly, Entrepreneur also reports that only 26% of all small businesses have a mobile website. It stands to reason that the percentage of law firms having mobile websites is even smaller.
An effective firm website will give you a good return on investment if it is built properly. You will spend a great deal of time and effort developing quality content for your website that informs your prospective clients about their case. You want that content to be delivered effectively to really see a return on the time and money spent to build your site. Effective delivery requires that your site be viewable across many devices, including proper use of images and contact forms. A recent study estimated that individuals check their smartphones an average of 150 times a day! It is time to invest in responsive design to take advantage of this massive shift to mobile technology.