LAW 7621 - UX4 Justice

The justice sector is rapidly adopting technology aimed at delivering legal information, legal services, and court services. Citing technology as an emerging access to justice strategy, the justice sector intends to expand the public’s access to their civil legal system through reducing barriers associated with travel to physical legal services and courthouses. Although justice sector technology is rapidly expanding across the nation, little attention has been paid to whether the people for whom justice sector technology is intended are able to access and use that technology. And that’s a problem, because the people who most need those online services are often the ones who find them hardest to use. This course trains students to apply User Experience (UX) methodologies to the evaluation and design of justice sector technology. UX and its focus on human-centered design helps ensure that people are able to successfully navigate the platforms intended to provide them with digital access to their civil legal system. This is an interdisciplinary, project-based course that engages students in critical thinking and creative problem solving through design thinking, systems thinking, community-based user research, usability testing, and human-centered design. Each semester, this course will tackle a new design challenge.