Service design for legal services. One of the first services in Poland to automate legal processes and provide complete customer service online.
About Project
The project was part of the “European Regional Development Fund programme, the value of which was over 4 million PLN. The service automates many different legal processes, making individual legal services for a client cheaper. It is an IT system designed to speed up the lawyer’s work and improve the contact between the law firm and the client.
ℹ️ If you want to check the project’s full description, click on the link.
Client
A team of renowned Polish lawyers led by an academic lecturer, PhD *Grzegorz Tracz, decided to implement a system to simplify and automate legal services. The development work (front-end and back-end) of the website was handled by Core Logic, for which I had the opportunity to work as a UX/UI Designer.
Scope of work
I designed the complete visual strategy of the company: logo, colour scheme, icons on the website, business cards, letterhead, etc. The scope of work also included the design of the Design System, which allowed me to build the application’s User Interface.
Do you want to see how I designed the system brand? Check out a different case study on-brand design for Vectis Iuris:
My design process was based on Design Thinking and Google Design Sprint principles. The basis of my work was interviews with the client to collect requirements and testing mock-ups with end-users. Prototyping and validation of wireframes took place in 2-week sprints to deliver a ready-to-implement design for the development team.
Together with my team, I mapped out in detail the interactions between various actors in the system (lawyer, client, system, etc.). As a designer, I got to know the work of a lawyer in detail – thanks to this, I designed several User Flows in the application to automate some of the lawyer’s work. Thanks to the User Flow and User Journey, I found repeatable processes that were later automated in the form of dedicated functionalities in the IT system.
As a designer, I have detailed User Flows for various types of users (client of a law firm + lawyer handling the case). Thanks to this, I defined the problems already at the initial stage of work. Finally, I designed the service’s functionalities so that creating a legal case by the User was as quick as possible, and the lawyer’s work on the case was comfortable. Thanks to tests with end-users, I also collected many opinions that helped me design.
Testing mock-ups are the foundation of UX Designer’s work!
To speed up front-end work and automate the process of implementing the service, the development team used ready-made libraries, which were styled according to the Design System guidelines.
The development team worked on the Scrum methodology in a 2-week sprint. As a designer, I also worked in 2-week sprints with my own Design Process. My Design Process was based on an iterative approach. Through tests and interviews, I gradually improved the mock-ups to hand them over to the IT team for implementation finally.
Team
Cross functional team
As a designer, I was present at all stages of product development, from the Founder’s idea to the delivery of finished software.
In the initial stages, I worked closely with the Project Manager (Krzysztof Organek) and Product Owner (Marek Matyjasek, a lawyer, who ensured the team met all business requirements. Grzegorz M. Tracz also provided legal assistance – he was also a system tester).
In my design work, it was essential to look at the product holistically through the User’s problems and the technical constraints we faced and the short time needed to implement the product. Finally, together with my team, we managed to implement a system for production that met the requirements of MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Product Design
To design the system, I worked according to Design Thinking principles. It consists of five stages empathising, defining, ideating (generating ideas), prototyping and testing.
Below you can check out a visual diagram showing my Design Process:
of five stages empathising, defining, ideating (generating ideas), prototyping and testing. In the initial phase, together with the Project Manager, I conducted a workshop with the client to collect the requirements. I used several techniques during the design process: Service Blueprint, Business Model Canvas, or Opportunity solution tree by Terresa Torres.
Check out my article on Medium about this fantastic technique. I hope it helps you with designing. Sharing knowledge is important to me!
Validation
The most important part of a designer’s job is UX testing. With interactive prototypes, I validated my ideas and design solutions with the Founder and end-users Thanks to this, I finally delivered complete and tested mock-ups for the development team.
Final design
I designed a minimalistic and simple website that meets the requirements of MVP. At the special request of the Founder, I created several different visual variants of the main page.
Functionalities
Types of Actors
I have listed three types of actors in the IT system. This division helped me map out Use Cases (actor’s interaction with the IT system) and design the User Flows.
Legal Case Tiles
This is the most important place for end-users that helps them to initiate a legal case with the law firm.
I designed a minimalist tiled layout that is easy to use. The information architecture and UX writing were fundamental when creating this functionality. The texts had to be made comprehensible to all, i.e. a person with little legal knowledge, a professional, or a large firm’s owner.
Legal Case Tiles
I started the design by making Wireframes:
I then tested the mock-ups with the client and end-users. In the last stage of work, I made the Hi-Fi mock-ups. With this system of work, my Design Process went quickly and seamlessly.
List of legal issues
I designed a dynamic table. The user can sort and filter the data in the table:
Legal Case Online
The view was divided into two parts:
The left part is – the entire history of the legal case, the so-called timeline (all actions completed by the client, lawyer and system notifications).
The right part is – metadata of the legal case (case description, attached documents, a full breakdown of costs, statuses of postal items (law firm letters and official letters)).
Timeline
This is a key functionality in the service—the entire history of the legal case. In the case history, the User will also find information on the tasks to be performed:
Subscription
I have visualised the remaining budget in the wallet and the time to use them in the form of a pie chart:
Automatic generation of documents
It is a functionality that fully automates the preparation of official letters by a lawyer:
The system itself generates the documents, places the appropriate signatures stamps of the law firm, and generates the data on the envelope:
Brand Design
Do you want to see how I designed the system brand? Check out a separate case study on a brand design:
