revamping - monica n. clemens - writing 2020

By Monica ClemensArizona State University - TWC 421

Professor Kramer

September 11, 2019

REVAMPINGThe United States District Court Website

Project 3For Project Three I’ve chosen the United States District Court for the Central District of California. https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/

Brief History 2002 San Diego:

As soon as our Federal Courts learned they could phase out millions of pages of paper per day by building large relational databases, they began building websites worthy of a Pharaoh. Yet their homepages were designed without uniformity and built with time-consuming logistics. Each year ease of use of became more tenuous, yet these websites continued to grow.

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Court Website UsabilityIn general, our court websites appear to have prehistoric personalities of their own. They are information-based, massive storage databases, most likely built on Access platforms and dynamic websites all in one.

• Court websites are dynamic websites with various intermediary application functions. They are software with lots of memory and run like machines.

• Court websites are also problem-solving websites that segment legal documentation, issue case numbers, and determine where to store paper (pdf) in their systems.

• Court websites rely on optical character recognition (OCR) which helps their machines reassemble binary code, sort paper and read documents.

• The legal community depends on straightforward writing for their livelihood. Citizens depend on straightforward writing to help them defend their rights.

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✓ Button Bar above✓ Button Bar below✓ Links, Links and More Links✓ Columns Galore✓ Too Much Social Media✓ Where’s Simple Terms Like: Find My Case?

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Yesteryear Branding

Simple Terms Are Not Searchable

Figure Me Out “Where’s My Case?” is “Whereas my Case”

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Where’s My Case?

• The USER must click through this website and go to PACER and open an account (See Orange Circle)

• PACER is a Separate Government Website https://www.pacer.gov/

Now That I Found My Case, How Do I File in My Case?

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• The User Must Open An Account Using CM/ECF (see orange circle on previous page)

• Case Management – Electronic Court Filing is CM/ECF

Make Rooom Minimalist Design

IDEAS

✓ Common Search Terms

✓ Strategic Buttons to the Left

✓ Clear Away the Columns

✓ Minimize Drop Down Menus

✓ Brand “Case/PACER” identify acronym as Court and Case Locator

✓ Brand “File/CM/ECF” identify acronym

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User Integrity: Design with the User in Mind

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Increasing the Flow of Information

Product as functionality Tasks

Find My Case Open an Account with PACER

File Paper in My Case Open an Account with CM/ECF

Find My Language Language translators could be made available by one of

the Court’s Vendors

Compare Constitutional Law to My Country Comparative Law could be a branded court application

that could be created as a Court Project

Product as information

What information does the product offer Currently there is too much information on home

page. The Court would help citizens and prepare

itself for the world of artificial intelligence by

creating minimalist designs with better real time

linguistics.

Better Search Terms need to be programmed into

the system.

What can they find Law, Order and Information about legal rights.

What can they absorb Information about Judges and court procedures.

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Conclusions:Uniformity and Order

• For twenty years our courts have built websites on would now seem like primitive wireframes and databases. Uniformity is lacking and each court homepage seems to have a personality of its own.

• Website usability without standardization is the key problem that needs solving. Without standardization of court websites, the court is left to its own devices, and in many cases, usability becomes muddy, and functions as simple as Find My Case are too complex for average citizens.

• With unified website designs the Courts can bend their websites to fit the future, making them more user-centric, modern and friendly.

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