Buro Happold: Mapping all its services

Site mapping logic increases the usability of a skills and services listing

The Site

Buro Happold, a leading firm of consulting engineers, has a simple approach to a problem common to many professional services organisations: how to convey a wide range of skills and services to users at a glance.

The site’s Services home page uses a three-column format list All Services. Each column heading represents a sector – Buildings, Infrastructure, Environment – and is supported by sub-headings and indented sub-service lists to break it down into manageable chunks. Headings at all levels are linked to give instant click-through to information pages, while some services appear in more than one column (for example, several of the Specialist consulting skills).

The Takeaway

By adopting a site-map-style extended listing on its main Services page Buro gives potential clients an instant overview of its offering, perhaps surprising those who may only know the company for one specialism. While ordering within the listings appears somewhat random, there may be a market logic to it (biggest first, for example).

Including skills that cross sectors in more than one list avoids a common pitfall of business-to-business sites by allowing users to come information in a way that makes more sense for them than being forced through the organisation’s internal structure. However, scanability could usefully be improved by reducing the size of the photograph at the head of the page so that the display fits fully in the browser window.

First published on 10 August, 2006