Deloitte Legal Design

Solution

Legal Design

Why legal professionals should use imagery instead of text

Deloitte introduces a new solution to help our clients achieve their goals; the use of non-textual communication in a professional setting. Why? Because people’s actions are shaped through their interactions with stimuli. Leaning on the fields of communication sciences, behavioral economics and psychology; the Deloitte Legal Design team utilizes all benefits visual communication has to offer.

Your challenge

The legal landscape is becoming increasingly complex. The regulatory environment pushes companies to find new solutions, risks of non-compliance rise and the constant development of new technology creates unforeseen challenges. Legal professionals face increasing pressure to address current and future business challenges. To manage all of this successfully legal professionals not only need to broaden their scope and skills, they also need to be on top of their communicative game all the time.

Want to understand how Legal Design can help you? Take a look at the examples here:

Our solution

Whether you’re summarizing complicated legal information or trying to decipher its essence, visualization is a powerful tool for swiftly getting a message across clearly and convincingly. Especially when the complexity of the message is high, as are the stakes. Why? Because communicating visually has advantages over word based communication when it comes to encoding and retrieving the information from the memory. The processing of words requires more cognitive exertion. Research into the picture superiority effect shows that if we only read a text, approximately 10% of the information is remembered three days later. If that same information is presented in a relevant combination of image and text, an astonishing 65% of that information is remembered three days later.

Added benefit of creating a visual representation of the information is that it forces you to make decisions and become concrete. Managerial terms or jargon like ‘risk appetite’ are not suited for visual translation, forcing one to dig deeper and give substance to what that means. Visualization challenges you to really think about your core message first, and on how to communicate it effectively second. Bringing a visual to the table allows you to get to the point quickly and creates shared understanding, accelerating decision-making.

Making Legal Design key in situations where stakes are high, the issues complex and/or the stakeholder field is challenging. For instance, in communication with regulators, governmental bodies or inside a courtroom.

Why Deloitte

Within the domain of Legal Design, we distinguish between different kinds of designs. No legal issue is the same and some require a different approach than others, tapping into multiple benefits of visual communication.

The Deloitte Designing Insight team is the most innovative in the current Dutch (legal) arena. The team brings over five years of experience in the legal sector, financial services and international corporations and have contributed to numerous high-end cases, both in and out of court.
Leaning on the fields of communication sciences, behavioral economics and psychology their scientific approach ensures that the designs communicate the key message and sort the preferred effect. Achieving the goals you set out for.

In case of any questions, don’t hesitate to connect!

Contact

Sarah van Hecke

Sarah van Hecke

Senior Manager

Sarah van Hecke is a communication scientist with a specialization in attitude and behaviour. She focuses specifically on the influence of imagery and design on behavior. In recent years she has imple... More