Push Law
Push Law was a semester long research and design project for the Human Computer Interaction class I took in Spring 2017. I worked along one other student on this project.
Problem: A lawyer may have over three thousand active cases at any one time. When the status of the case changes or information is updated, the court system notifies all involved parties (defendant, plaintiff, counsel, building owner, landlord) of the change through physical mail. This information is also uploaded to an online, public record database. This database can be configured to send an email whenever a change occurs to a case, on a case-by-case basis.
Mr. Rosenblum would like to receive the email notifications with each update, but the sheer number of changes to all his cases on any given day would likely be an overload of information.
With the current systems in place, Mr. Rosenblum simply waits to receive notice through the mail, but this is a slow process and can cause him to miss work that he would have otherwise completed. From another perspective, a landlord or a property owner may want to know when there is a complaint filed against their property. In the case of certain violations, action must be taken within 24 hours of receiving the complaint or legal action will be forthcoming. For these people, waiting for the mail is not feasible, and although there is a public record database for these complaints, there is no simple way to be notified of pertinent changes without manually checking.
Target Users: An attorney in public-record cases will use this, a landlord will use this, a property owner will use this, an office clerk will use this, the head of a law firm will use this.
Solution: The databases for this information are entirely public record which enables access. The goal is to place the records in mobile and web applications that allow for on-the-go access and notification of changes, while also providing for a larger and easier to navigate interface on the web.
Measures of Success: Clear and immediate change in Mr. Rosenblum’s case management process. The goal that Mr. Rosenblum and other parties would be able to track at least 10 important cases through the push notification system.
We would also mark success based on the WAMMI factors – most notably control, efficiency, helpfulness, and learnability.
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User Profiles:
Primary: Head of Firm, Office Manager, Attorney
1. Josh is a landlord and tenant attorney who has run his own business for over 25 years. He has developed strong working relationships with many of his clients, and his experience and firm grasp of his area of expertise allows him to save time and money for him and his clients. His work has him dealing with an extremely large volume of cases daily, and he is overwhelmed by the inadequate systems in place in his office and by the court system. Josh is not extremely proficient in technology, but uses his smartphone for texts and emails every day and always has it with him. Additionally, his firm has proprietary software to keep him up to date on what needs to be done. Josh will use the application to keep up to date on his upcoming appearances, and prepare accordingly.
2. Kathleen is the office manager at a landlord and tenant firm. Her primary job is keeping the firm working like a well-oiled machine to allow the attorneys to do their best work. She manages the calendar of cases and helps to create the schedules for the attorneys. A majority of her daily work is done at the computer, and she is well versed in the company’s proprietary software and other programs. She is assertive, hard-working, and extremely capable. She is more proficient in software than some of the attorneys and is familiar with how apps work and enjoys troubleshooting efficient systems. Kathleen will use the application to keep on top of the master calendar, and easily divvy up work among the attorneys.
3. Michael is an attorney who has been working in the law firm for 5 years. He is intelligent, witty, but seems less driven to attract new clients. He is fairly young, and very up to date on current technology. He is primarily responsible for cases in a single borough of NYC, and because of that he is not very interested in developments outside of his domain. He is not yet trusted with cases for important clients, as he is new and does not have a rapport with the judges yet.
Secondary: Court Clerk, Law Office Worker
Court Clerk will input data into the court’s online database, which will be read by program.
The Law Office worker may receive exported email output.
Tertiary: Clients, Judges
A client of a law firm will see a complete stop in cases where an attorney was not present. A failure will result in a negative outcome for the case.
A judge does not like to waste time, and the more prepared an attorney is for any given appearance, the easier and faster a judge’s decision will be.
Facilitating: Court IT workers, Law Firm IT workers
Court IT workers decide the format for data in the open record database, which is what the program will be using as input.
The Law Firm IT workers have created a proprietary software with specific data formats and functional practices which should be adhered to in any additional software for the firm.
Tasks:
Problem Scenarios:
1. Kathleen is a very busy woman. One of her primary responsibilities is keeping track of upcoming court appearances so that all attorneys can be properly prepared for their time in front of a judge. To do this, she keeps and updates the master calendar of all cases currently open with the firm as the plaintiff. She diligently searches the mail every day, sifts through that which is not relevant, and manually adds the information to the master calendar using proprietary software.
2. Michael generally works in Brooklyn every day. However, the calendar for Brooklyn is not something readily available to him. In order to see the cases for his specific borough, he relies on Kathleen filtering through the meticulously crafted master calendar using the firm’s proprietary software. Because this is not available more than a few days in advance, it is difficult for Michael to prepare adequately for his appearances.
3. When Josh is preparing for a case, it is important for him to know the particulars of why the case is going before court. In general, he seeks to avoid going to court as much as possible, because it is expensive for both him and his clients, and so generally something has gone wrong if a case is going before court. In order to see the details of a case, however, it is necessary for Josh to go to a desktop or laptop computer. This is such an important thing to have on him at all times, that he has spent inordinate sums of money on a program which prints out all relevant information for his cases for the day to carry with him at all times. This is, however, cumbersome.
Usability Requirements:
1. Test user will be able to successfully add a set of cases to be searched without coaching.
2. Users will replace, or heavily supplement, use of old mail notification system with new application.
