Embedded Files
Research-led strategic redesign based on audiences and Jobs-To-Be-Done.
Context and objective
The County Court of Victoria decided to redesign its website in line with its strategic direction of improving the Court user experience and engaging with the community.
The aim was to make the website user-focused by appropriately addressing its different audiences, especially those representing themselves in a dispute proceeding before the Court (in legalese 'Self Represented Litigants'). The website also aimed to act as a point of communication and interaction with the community.
My role
As Design Lead, I defined project scope and audiences, conducted and presented research, facilitated workshops with stakeholders, including the Court CEO and Chief Judge office, and developed the information architecture and wireframes. I managed the project from inception through to UI design, incorporating feedback from the stakeholders to ensure alignment and readiness for development.
The approach
Data analytics allowed me to understand how users enter and exit the website.
Comparative analysis of court and government websites helped identify gaps, enabled more informed design decisions, and allowed enhancing user experience by leveraging best practices.
Why research?
To provide value to users, we have to know them. Designing based on assumptions or internal requirements only can be dangerous. It is about 'getting out of the building', empathising with the user, and understanding their needs, wants and frustrations. The research outcome was a statement: 'How might we ensure that our website is an effective and seamless tool for a range of diverse audiences and a communication tool for the wider community?'
Secondary research
Google Analytics helped understand user behaviour by defining the critical pages on the website. A first surprise: the website consists of 3,000 URLs, but two pages only made up over 50% of the traffic. Moreover, two distinct behaviours appeared: users spent less than 30 seconds on the website or more than 10 minutes.
The heuristic review and content audit pointed out critical usability issues with the current website, such as issues in the information architecture, search functionality, and language.
A comparative analysis with similar websites aimed to find best practices we could leverage. Examples:
Audience-based navigation on the State Courts Singapore;
Accessibility and left-hand navigation menu on gov.uk;
Functional mobile menu in the Supreme Court of Singapore.
Record search functionality in the High Court of Australia.
Primary research
A series of internal workshops with key stakeholders, including the CEO and office, the Chief Judge's office, the Director of Governance, and Court staff, helped frame the scope, requirements, and constraints and identify key audience types for research.
Usability testing and in-depth interviews with legal practitioners, media, teachers, and the general public allowed me to test typical user flows and explore frustrations and needs.
A quantitative online survey allowed us to quantify some aspects of web usage and better understand current limitations and pain points.
Through user research, I identified six user archetypes with different needs, wants and frustrations:
Lou Lawyer;
John Journo
Igor Interested (Terry Teacher, Suzie Student)
Sam Self-Representing (based on an interview with Self Represented Litigants coordinator);
Ronnie Registry (internal);
Courtney Communicator (internal, CMS)
Usability testing was crucial to evaluate how real users interact with the website, and to identify pain points and areas for improvement, ensuring the design is intuitive and meets user needs effectively.
User workshops allowed me to gather direct input from users, uncover insights, and ensure the design aligns with user needs and expectations.
There are six personas with very different needs.
Information architecture implies categorising all content into logical groups based on themes, functionality, or user tasks. User personas and scenarios guide the structure based on how different users will interact with the content. The aim is to ensure users can easily find what they’re looking for.
Content mapping and Information Architecture
The information architecture followed a user-centric approach to minimise the user effort to complete the most common tasks uncovered during the preceding research phase. We aimed to create an intuitive navigation and enhance user understanding, ensuring users can easily find what they need. The outcome was a proposed site map, which I tested with users to learn how easily they could complete typical 'Jobs-To-Be-Done' (e.g. filing a document or finding a particular piece of info).
The sitemap, a visual representation of the site's structure, shows the hierarchy and relationships between pages or content sections and helps stakeholders' feedback.
Pen and paper sketches to jot down ideas.
A mobile-first approach ensures that the design is optimised for smaller screens and touch interactions, leading to a more streamlined and user-friendly experience that can scale effectively to larger devices.
Iterative, mobile-first design
The design followed a mobile-first approach, i.e., it was conceived for a mobile experience first and then scaled up so that we delivered a great user experience regardless of the device.
Rapid sketching sessions on paper focused on audience-based cards, leading to audience-specific aggregate pages with the most relevant links, a prominent search bar, and quick links to the most common tasks.
I turned the sketches into a low-fi digital artefact, which underwent successive iterations to improve layout functionality and form.
User feedback led us to the final version:
The prominent search bar was moved as a global element to the header;
The IA was slightly revised;
Both tasks and audience cards start above the fold, thus further assisting navigation.
Low-fi digital sketch
Iterations trying different layouts and functionalities.
Mid-fi design to test with users and discuss with stakeholders.
The homepage: before and after
County Court of Victoria: the live website in 2017 (left), the redesigned homepage mid-fi (center) and the new website after redesign live(right)
The outcome
The website improved usability, with audience-based quick-links and an easy-to-retrieve and consult Court Calendar (which accounts for 50% of the site visits).
Accessibility was also top-of-mind in terms of WCAG AA compliance and from a content layout and language standpoint.
The aim of improving transactions between the Court and court users, and to enable greater community engagement was achieved.
Testimonials
This past year we have also designed a new court user-centred website, which we will proudly launch later in 2018. In many ways, this new website is an embodiment of many the Court’s key priorities: improvement of user experience, evidence based reform, utilising new technology and community engagement.
- Chief Judge Peter Kidd (County Court of Victoria annual report 2017-18)
Google Sites
Report abuse