Project: Baker Botts Homepage Redesign (Desktop & Mobile)
Baker Botts LLP is an international law firm specializing in litigation, corporate transactions, intellectual property, and regulatory matters. It has particular expertise in the energy, technology, and life sciences sectors. The firm operates across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Quick glance at the Home page before and after!
Before
These visual illustrations show the Baker Botts home page before I started the project, and the results after my design leadership.
Let me walk you through my process below.
After
The Opportunity
Transform a mandatory maintenance window into an opportunity to modernize Baker Botts
The Baker Botts website was nearing the end of its Sitecore DXP (Digital Experience Platform) lifecycle, creating risks of rising costs and reduced functionality. The firm seized this moment to work with a design agency to reimagine the digital experience. The engagement would start with a homepage redesign as a proof of concept to demonstrate the impact of user-centered design and guide future enhancements.
Overarching Goals
Collaborate on and identify the Baker Botts brand
Create a vision statement and design strategy
Modernize the website
Identify and solve for feature gaps
Plan a road map for the future
Project Timeline & Resources
10+
Weeks
5
Design Staff
5
Client Staff
My Responsibilities
Client relationship & status
Research strategy & facilitation
Workshop facilitation
Product design strategy
Requirements prioritization & roadmap
Business development
+
Design System
Tools
Figma
Jira
Miro
Zoom
Design Sprints
I created a Sprint plan for the Design activities and deliverables for this project, managed the overall team, and collaborated on deliverables. Each Sprint consisted of two weeks with daily internal reviews and check-ins with the client twice a week.
Sprint 1: Discovery Research
Design Workshop
Heuristic Evaluation
Competitive Assessment
Summarize research
Vision (Brand) Statement
Sprint 2: Design Concept
Create and refine desktop and mobile concepts
Create Homepage concepts
Consider impact on Sub-Pages (for future consideration)
Sprint 3: Visual Designs & User Evaluation
Refine visual designs and interactions
Facilitate exploratory user evaluations
Sprint 4: Refinement
Refine visual designs and interactions
Define and identify the main header Video content
Sprint 5: Future Design Considerations
Improvements to subpages and features
Net new features
Language translation
Scope, resources, and cost of phased proposal
Discovery Research
During the Discovery phase, my goal was to understand the current Baker Botts Homepage strategy and identify what and how to pivot to not only modernize but create a more effective experience for clients.
2: Vision Statement
During the workshop, I led a session to collaborate with stakeholders and executive leadership to identify their goals, challenges, and aspirations for the brand and digital experience. Common themes emerged that reflected both the firm’s brand values and user needs.
These insights were distilled into a clear Vision Statement, serving as a unifying guide for design decisions and ensuring the future website aligned with Baker Botts’ strategic priorities and user expectations.
4: Heuristic Evaluation
With my guidance, the team conducted a heuristic evaluation of the Baker Botts website using Nielsen Norman Group’s usability heuristics as a framework. This review identified key issues that my design team would seek to address.
These findings highlighted usability gaps that needed to be addressed to create a more intuitive, accessible, and user-friendly digital experience.
1: Design Workshop
As part of a discovery phase, I led a design workshop using the “I want, I wish, I wonder” framework to capture stakeholder perspectives.
“I want” captured the firm’s strengths and what they are doing well now on the site.
“I wish” captured areas for improvement or things that are missing on the site, but are needed.
“I wonder” captured ideas for the future and aspirational goals for the site.
Affinity Map: Following the workshop, I created an Affinity Map to synthesize insights from the exercise. This process clarified the product vision, prioritized UX needs, exposed key usability issues, and outlined a roadmap for evolving the Baker Botts digital experience—beginning with the homepage.
3: Competitive Review
I led my design team in conducting a competitive review of law firm websites to evaluate design patterns, content strategies, and digital brand positioning. This analysis highlighted common industry standards—such as streamlined attorney search and thought leadership hubs—while also revealing opportunities for differentiation, personalized content, and modern visual design were identified as potential enhancements to help Baker Botts stand out in a highly competitive legal market.
The following activities were conducted:
Conduct a Design Workshop
Create a Vision Statement
Conduct a Competitive Review
Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation
Design Concepts
I worked alongside my Design team to create interactive wireframes and define visual layouts, content, and features. The following visuals are samples of that effort.