Bhatt Murphy are one of the top Human Rights specialists in the UK . We developed a very specific site that combines interactive timelines, online forms and a bespoke content management system and conforms to strict WAI-AA standards. We also made sure that the navigation was enhanced for screen readers, with the effect that it works really well on the smallest of screens like for instance on mobile phones.

“Creating a website from scratch was a daunting project for Bhatt Murphy: we have never advertised before and were quite anxious about projecting the right image of ourselves. Monomo were both sensitive to our needs and innovative in their approach. They debunked all the complexities and gave us a site that we are really proud of. Monomo showed great professionalism and skill in translating our hopes for the site into a reality. We have found the site really easy to update and have enjoyed excellent feedback from our clients both old and new.”
Fiona Murphy, Bhatt Murphy Solicitors

Background

When Bhatt Murphy asked us to develop a site for them they had some pretty strict criteria they wanted to follow. Being one of the top Human Rights specialists in the UK they also dealt with fairly tough subject matter.

Interface

Bhatt Murphy has been involved in many ground breaking cases, many of which they obviously wanted to document and highlight on their site. Their work covers a vast area and is very complex by nature, but much of the information is very useful and important for researchers, journalists, and activists.

In trying to organise the content we created a very clear heirachy of information to make it easy for people to navigate and find, making it a very effective communication, marketing and research tool for the firm and its target audience.

Because of the nature of some of the headings (headlines for law articles tend to be very very long and for non professionals cryptic most of the times) we aimed to strike a balance between general readability of context and text book accessibility in the use of links and headings.

Much of the content is also of a very sensitive nature, it in this particular case it was inappropriate to include stock photographs or illustrations alongside such content (as so many law firms like to do), and decided to keep the site very clear and calm and focus on the users need to find particular information.

We grouped the navigation into three clear sections, and included a breadcrumb navigation at the top of the page. Together with the client we also introduced the idea of interactive timelines, as an efficient way to document the impact of their client’s cases and their contribution to legal change.

The Human Factor

The staff of Bhatt Murphy had little experience with the internet at the beginning of this project. They were trained on the CMS and all content was put up by them independently and has been since maintained and edited by them. We feel this speaks volumes for the commitement by the staff of Bhatt Murphy and the software/interface in place that allows them to do that.

Accessibility

The site adheres to technical industry standards WAI-AA and XHTML strict. It is is very fast to load, bar the logo there are no pictures, markup and css are handcoded. We took special care to structure the code and navigation and information so that it also works well with specific software and hardware such as screen readers and mobile devices.