Federal Court of Australia:
Foundation UX
Program description
The Digital Court Program is a major I.T. and infrastructure program being undertaken by the Federal Court of Australia. The target of the program is to transform the entire Australian Federal and Family court systems, moving them into the digital era by gradually eradicating the use of paper in the courtroom altogether.
Business Goals & Alignment
The UX aspect of the program began with workshops with key stakeholders, executives and subject matter experts to understand the key business motives behind the DCP program. Participants of the workshops each voiced their own opinions individually helping to achieve alignment amongst the executive team.
UX Principles & Guidelines
With a clearer understanding of the motives behind the program and the role that UX will be playing at the courts, principles and guidelines derived from the 'UK Government Digital Service Design Principles' and 'Nielsen's Heuristic Evaluation & Usability Inspection Methods' were tailored for the Federal Court of Australia.
Key Findings from Interviews, Workshops & Personas
A number of one-on-one interviews and workshops were conducted with subject matter experts and users to iron out goals, tasks and key pain points. The outputs of these sessions contributed to the development of the DCP personas which were used extensively throughout the Foundation phase and initial releases of the DCP.
Contextual Observations
It was important for us to understand how the current systems and applications were being utilised in everyday tasks and environments so we made multiple trips to registries and court rooms throughout Australia to observe the applications in use. The varying use of the software and the abundance of off-line tasks gave us areas of focus as well as highlight user frustrations requiring immediate attention.
User Journeys
A number of group and one-on-one workshops were run with end-users to understand their current working practices on targeted feature sets, how they utilise current software to fulfill tasks and finally their desired paths/ journeys. These user defined journeys become the foundational structures for the initial prototype development workshops and co-design sessions.
Accessibility & Usability Analysis
As part of the extensive experience analysis being undertaken on the DCP, accessibility & usability reports were put together covering key features of the existing 'Case Management System'. These reports gave the team metrics to measure UX enchantments against to demonstrate to key stakeholders the progress being made on the program.
Usability Testing
As well as conducting an expert review of the current systems, it was important to test them in a more personable manner with end-users. In one-on-one sessions, users were set tasks by an adjudicator and metrics were gathered on their responses. Conducting both an expert analysis and user centric analysis gave greater clarity to the features that required immediate attention in comparison to features that could be targeted in later releases.
Co-Design & Initial Wireframing
Further group workshops were planned and facilitated with the target of co-designing new solutions for the targeted feature sets identified as a part of the UX foundation analysis. The rough sketches and initial drawings were quickly wireframed after each session so that they could be shared with the wider team for further input and feedback.
Interactive Prototype Development
The final output from the foundation phase of the program for user experience was an interactive prototype built using Sketch and InVision. It was used to demonstrate key findings and co-designed solutions to the board of directors, executive team members and subject matter experts. The main purpose of the prototype was not to land of a final solution but to instead highlight areas of focus for up-coming future projects part of the DCP.