Lessons from the field
Human-centered design (HCD) is a design method used to develop products and services from the perspective of those who use them. It is an intentional process, but also a creative one. It involves immersing yourself in the problem you are trying to solve, working with the people experiencing the problem, experimenting with solutions, and, most importantly, lowering your defenses and opening yourself and your design team up to candid and uncensored feedback about what you are doing wrong (and hopefully some things you are doing right)!
For the past two years, the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution (Winkler Institute) and the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ), two research institutions that are housed at Osgoode Hall Law School, have been actively involved in initiatives that apply the principles of human- centered design to the justice system. The credit for this work largely belongs to Nicole Aylwin, who is both the Assistant Director of the Winkler Institute and a Research Fellow at CFCJ.
While we are only beginning to use the HCD process in the justice system, it is being successfully used to tackle hunger and poverty, improve patient experiences in the healthcare system, and provide solutions to long-term unemployment. What makes HCD successful? In HCD users – those who are experiencing the problem – are the experts.
However, although there are more and more justice stakeholders experimenting with HCD, many skeptics remain. A look at the results of an ongoing HCD project that the Winkler Institute and CFC have undertaken with Yukon Courts and the Yukon Department of Justice demonstrates that using this process can lead to tangible results.
The project began last fall with a family justice design workshop in Whitehorse through Yukon Courts and the Yukon Department of Justice. Our stakeholders (and now our partners) were interested in learning about the innovation tools they might use to help them respond to the needs of users in the family justice system.
Over the course of two days, a workshop served as the platform for generating collaborative solutions to the problems experienced by users of the family justice system. One of the key insights emerging from this workshop, which included lawyers, community service providers, judges and members of the public, was that one of the “pain points” for family justice users – particularly those who are unrepresented – was completing the necessary forms. Forms generated stress and anxiety and were just plain confusing. Moreover, not only were the forms stressful and intimidating for the users, but filling out forms was also a point of anxiety for service providers who are often asked to assist with these forms.
This could have been the end of it. Some interesting ideas generated, a pat on the back given for hosting one of those newfangled innovation workshops. Good job to all.
Yet the Yukon Courts were not prepared to leave the insights they had gained unused. Soon after the workshop we received a request to continue to work with the group to redesign the family law statement of claim using the HCD process. Thus began our Yukon Simplified Form Innovation Project.
It has been a considerable (and very engaging) endeavor over the past 10 months and there is a report forthcoming. Here are some takeaways from the experience thus far.
- Don’t get defensive. One of the unique things about the HCD process is that as you get closer to designing a product or service that is usable, engaging and useful, it often throws into sharp relief how unfriendly, unusable and uninviting the current ways of doing things are. When this happens it’s hard not to get defensive. This is natural, but don’t let it stand in your way. Recognizing errors in the current process can be motivation to design something even better.
- Always bring it back to experience. To get a sense of how clearly the different prototypes presented information, how quickly they could be filled out by users, etc. Nicole recently made a trip back to Whitehorse to test the first series of form prototypes with users, service providers and lawyers. We wanted to measure people’s experiences when filling out the new forms. To do this we asked users to give us feedback on their stress levels as they were filling out the forms. We also asked them about their first impressions of the forms, i.e., were they intimidating, inviting, etc. The feedback we received from these questions will have just as much impact on the next iteration of our form as the feedback we received about the ease of use and accuracy.
- Human-centered design is a mindset. HCD is about more than just methodology; it is also a mindset. It requires that those on the design team (and those that support it) bring a particular set of values, beliefs and perspectives to the design challenge, namely the willingness to be creative, experiment, fail and most importantly, collaborate with users to ensure that the final product meets the users’ needs rather than their own. It’s easy to get off track and fall into old habits of designing for those who work in the system rather than for those who use it. Many times throughout our process, our team had to reconnect with the HCD mindset reminding ourselves whom we were designing for and why.
Undertaking a project in the justice system using HCD is challenging. We are still learning when and where to adapt the process to the culture and requirements of the justice system, and when not to adapt the process but rather to push for those engaging with it to expand their boundaries. We commend Yukon Courts for embracing HCD and embarking on this project, which we hope will serve as an example for others as they experiment with HCD. Stay tuned to read more about the project and our final product.
The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice is a national non-profit organization that is dedicated to advancing civil justice reform through research and advocacy. The Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution is a non- profit research institution dedicated to exploring and improving formal and informal methods of dispute resolution.
This article originally appeared in slaw.ca and has been edited for publication in the Obiter Dicta.