Source is a secure search engine for international law firm Allen & Overy. It allows people at the firm to search simultaneously across files, Know How and other data sources from one central point. It is powered by Autonomy and can search around 70 million different documents – really, I didn’t make that up.

The starting point of a Source search

My role on the project was to define the user journeys and develop an intuitive user interface that was designed for legal PAs in mind. The design of the UI had to be familiar to users, so the design had to be clean, simple and quite minimal, much the Google approach to UI design.

The results page, before the refining begins.

The biggest challenge was around letting users to refine result quickly. This was achieved with a set of filters on the left hand side for specifying and refining data sources, author, document type, client, matter, topics, countries and languages. By having the filter controls on the left of the same page, it allowed the user to see their results getting narrower within the same page view.

Another trick we adopted to keep the user experience focussed around the results pages was to introduce light-box overlays for settings and saved searches.

Designing the Source brand came about as a side project. They already had chosen the ‘Source’ name and had their art department mocked up a quick logo. I used that as my starting point and then formed it into something tighter, punchy and plush, echoing some of the characteristics of the Allen & Overy brand.

Creating a ‘Getting Started Guide’ was a nice little exercise in introducing users to the UI and keeping the guide so simple it could be read in a few minutes.

A page from the Source 'Getting Started Guide'

Another page from the Source 'Getting Started Guide'

All hail to the beauty of the font Gill Sans...

Rulefinder is an online legal risk management resource covering the rules relating to international shareholding disclosure. It’s a clever bit of kit that analyses and pinpoints disclosures across 70+ jurisdictions, something I imagine is complex and would take an age if attempted manually.

The blue ball confidentially guiding its way out of the complex labyrinth was the concept we used for this service to tell the story behind the powerful software.

I chose Gill Sans for the Rulefinder logotype. It was so good to work with that classic 20th century font again. It has a clarity and authority about it that was just right for Rulfinder. A subtle touch is the dot on the ‘i’, which is the blue ball from the maze imagery.

Rulefinder brochure

To support the launch of the Rulefinder, some materials were developed – a printed brochure, 2 large format exhibition banners, some web banners and a PowerPoint template.

Large format exhibition banners for the launch of Rulefinder

Since 3Store contains a growing range of products and plans, it took a number of clicks for users to navigate to a particular phone or a price plan.

In our previous design of the homepage (see below), there was a small, simple, bog standard ‘Quick finder‘ with 3 dropdown panel with limited options. It proved to be popular, with Googe Analystics statistics revealing that Quick finder attracted over 10% of all clicks on the homepage, which is a lot when you consider there were 53  clickable areas on the page.

May 2009 - Stats for the previous homepage design from Google Analytics

It became clear from the web stats that some users, who knew exactly what they were looking for and needed a way to get straight to the product or plan that they had in mind. In the fast and furious world of online retail, this becomes essential.

August 2009 - 3Store design refresh featuring the improved Quick finder

This user motive become the inspiration to design the Quickfinder panel that presented a full list of products, plans and price points under three separate tabs. It provides users with a route straight to specific product in just 1 click from the homepage.

Find a product shows the full range at 3Store offers

The product panel can navigate to a manufacturer or a specific model of phone, laptop or modem. The plans panel lists every variation of plans (minutes + texts) and grouping them into plan types and contract length (e.g. 18 months) The last panel lets users browse plans by price.

Find a plan allows users to find minutes & texts specific plans

I had further ambitions for Quick finder – for it appear on every page on 3Store since it is such a powerful tool, so hopefully the new 3Store team will consider to roll it out further into the website.