Assignment: Design interface to search engine
Legal Intelligence aims at providing advanced tools in the field of information and knowledge management for the legal profession. They strive to disclose all relevant legal information and to make it easily accessible.
In 2002 Legal Intelligence started developing a system that offers access to various legal sources. The system offers one interface with which users can search through multiple legal sources. With this system users no longer need to execute numerous searches through various journals and databases: the system will search through all available sources at the same time. The Legal Intelligence search engine also uses an extensive controlled vocabulary (thesaurus), which helps the user to formulate a good search query.
Since the first release of the Legal Intelligence search engine in 2003, Legal Intelligence added several new features and functionalities to the product. At a certain point the original set-up of the search interface started to restrict further progress. In order to support all planned expansions Legal Intelligence contacted User Intelligence for a redesign. The new design should integrate both existing and new functionalities and should leave room for expansion in the future.
Method used: Concept, interaction design and usability test
User Intelligence started the project by mapping all requirements and wishes and by collecting feedback from existing users about their needs and wishes. After this we created a concept that described all different elements of the site and their interaction with each other. The goal of this concept was to create a clear and consistent structure in the product that offered enough room for future plans.
After completing the concept, we started working on the interaction design. We started by creating wireframes that showed the features on the pages and the relation between the various pages and sections. The wireframes were then used to create a clickable prototype using swipr. This prototype was shown to a group of legal professionals and their feedback was used to improve the wireframes.
A visual designer used the wireframes as a basis for the graphic design. The wireframes and the design were used by Legal Intelligence themselves as a basis to write the technical and functional specifications. These specifications were then used to build the new version of Legal Intelligence.
Results: Improved interface ready for the future
The final result was an improved version of the Legal Intelligence search interface that was released in 2006. By first creating a clear concept and testing this, all the different parts of the product now fit together in a clear and consistent way. The designs also took into account all the planned expansions. It is now possible to add these future functions without impacting the existing interface. Also some of the advanced functionalities have been designed in a more user friendly manner, making them accessible for a larger group of users.
