In 2011 we had the pleasure to partner with development specialists Provoke to deliver a new website for our super client Kensington Swan, one of the premier law firms in New Zealand. Together we have submitted an entry into the Kentico Web Awards for the project. Below is a snippet of why we think the website is a compelling contender for such a prestigious award.

"The boys and girls at Provoke really nailed this puppy - can't wait for our next collaboration!"

Biggest challenge in creating the website…

Kensington Swan is one of the top eight law firms in New Zealand. The new Kensington Swan website was created to inform the business and employment market about the Kensington Swan brand. The biggest challenge in creating the new website was finding solutions to solve information architecture issues caused by duplicate content categories.

Kensington Swan was keen to refresh their web presence from their old website to one that would be closer aligned to their brand and better meet the user needs. They needed a cleaner and more appealing visual design, and to enable website users to find the information they were after easier with an improved information architecture and features. 

The biggest challenge in developing the website was designing a clean, scalable and maintainable solution to maintain relationships between the various types of content on the site – such as which people are experts in particular areas of law, or which people are related to a particular news article, and what legal issues news articles are categorized under.

The entire solution uses the Kentico CMS, which we have both used in previous engagements to great success. A large amount of out of the box functionality was used or extended, including the Kentico Smart Search components (which Provoke extended and also used for a people search), BizForms for various feedback and applications forms, and custom Document Types and repeaters to allow for flexible and powerful content management.

The majority of development took place within a two month period between September 2011 and October 2011 (Provoke), with strategy analysis and visual design running for a couple of months prior (Federation Media), and testing and minor enhancements during November until the go-live in late December.

We chose Kentico CMS for vital reasons – firstly, we have an experienced team who had previously delivered successful projects using Kentico CMS. Kentico CMS is also built upon the .NET stack, and as Microsoft Gold Partners we love using Microsoft Technology. Finally, Kentico strikes the right balance between complexity, depth and customizability - Kentico provides a lot of powerful functions without any custom development, but also allows for painless customization and extensibility. The quality of the Kentico product is definitely worth the license cost, not to mention the availability of helpful support staff and ever-improving documentation.

Looking at the old and new sites side by side, it is clear that we had produced a significantly better website – not only in terms of how it looked and was branded, but also in terms of functionality and usability. The new website enables site visitors to very quickly and easily find exactly what they need, whether it is a specific person to contact, the latest news in a particular area of law, or to learn more about Kensington Swan.

The new look-feel represents the Kensington Swan brand suitably and the refreshed content, consistent and usable navigation & clear calls to action all lead to an optimal user experience for the various audiences of the website.