Usability

Web Usability and Legal Research

In the introduction of his book “DESIGNING WEB USABILITY”, Jakob Nielsen said that “Usability rules the Web. Simply stated, if the customer can’t find a product, then he or she will not buy it.” According with this author (in other books), consistency, scannability, simplicity and visibility, and accessibility are at the core of the usability principle. Consistency is, in fact, one of the most powerful usability principles for Nielsen: when things always behave the same, users do not have to worry about what will happen.

The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),64 states that “users define ‘usability’ as their perception of how consistent, efficient, productive, organized, easy to use, intuitive, and straightforward it is to accomplish tasks within a system.” It also says that the “users can have expectations based on their prior experience … users acted on their own expectations even when there were indications on the screen to counter those expectations.

“Scannability is also important in designing a website (…). Furthermore, we cannot ignore that first-time users, or users who have not used a website for a while, will be frustrated with searching a website when the website designer does not understand users’ scanning patterns which can be traced by eye tracking instruments like Tobii eye trackers.” (1)

The “Public Library of Law 94 website developed by Fastcase did a better job than LexisOne in terms of usability and additionally features broader coverage for links to other sources such as statutes, regulations, court rules, constitutions, and legal forms. The Public Library of Law website provides a simple and visible search; it eliminates distractions and locates a search box in the top middle of the homepage, where users’ scanning starts. Users can easily navigate among sources by simply clicking the type of sources. In a case law database, users will put search terms in the search box and hit the search button next to the box. Users can limit the scope of their search by date and jurisdiction by clicking the “Advanced Options” button under the search box.

On the “search results” pages, the results are listed by relevance, and the percentage of relevance is also provided next to the title of each case, conspicuously underlined with blue-colored letters, which also increases the scannability of the website. Furthermore, the grey-colored text, containing the search terms in a black color and located below the case title, makes it easier to see whether the case is relevant. Full space allocation of the list of search results and the actual text of the case in a white color 72 em 95 wide content container with the
#404246 dark grey color background helps users to reduce their researching time by making them concentrate on case results and case text.

While LexisOne requires users to pay money to follow hyperlinks provided in the case text, which actually makes users go back and search again, the Public Library of Law website allows users to freely follow the hyperlinks to the authorities provided in a case and see them without searching again. Furthermore, the users’ current location is easy to tell by looking at the hierarchical information under the search box. Except for the fact that the website does not allow users to figure out the hyperlinks they have clicked, overall searching in this website is very simple and visible.

The website is also highly consistent throughout the pages. For example, the search boxes for different sources and hierarchical information to help users figure out their current location is placed on the top of a page regardless of which page users look at.” (2)

Resources

Notes

1. Jootaek Lee (2012) “Gatekeepers of Legal Information: Evaluating and Integrating Free Internet Legal Resources into the Classroom,” Barry Law Review: Vol. 17: Iss. 2, Article 3
2. Id.