Casify
Designing efficient legal case management: Empowering Defense Attorneys with Casify
UX Research
Interaction Design
Design Systems
Visual Design
Prototyping
ROLE
Product Design Lead
TEAM
1 Product Design Lead
5 Product Designers
Cal Poly iter8
DURATION
4 weeks
TOOLS
Figma
FigJam
Coda
BACKGROUND:
Streamlining digital case management for defense attorneys
Casify is an online case management platform created to meet the specific needs of criminal defense attorneys. With the rising volume of digital and electronic files in legal cases, Casify offers a quick, reliable solution for attorneys to store, access, and display digital evidence, whether in or out of the courtroom.
Despite its potential, Casify’s current web platform design lacks intuitive navigation, making it challenging for users—particularly established attorneys—to adopt and integrate into their workflow.
The current web platform:
Imagine this...
A defense attorney stands before the judge, ready to present a crucial piece of evidence. But as they search through Casify, valuable time slips away. The judge grows impatient and finally remarks,
“You wouldn’t be taking this long if you weren’t using that app.”
This experience reveals a core issue with Casify’s current platform—it’s not optimized for fast, intuitive use in high-stakes situations. For attorneys relying on Casify in court, the complex navigation and poor usability lead to delayed access to evidence, causing frustration and impacting their professional performance.
OUR CHALLENGE:
HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND WHAT DEFENSE ATTORNEYS DO??
TIME FOR SOME RESEARCH!!
WE CONDUCTED RESEARCH WITH TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE:
1
Criminal Defense Attorneys
Understanding the DA Workflow:
Everything is tied to a trial date, and then everything is set up subsequently
Every date must be logged - calendar is the summary of a case
Lots of back and fourth between the DA and court
DA’s know where everything is in their file system, usually filed chronologically
Cover sheet of a case has the case file number, date complaint filed, summary
2
Older Folks Who May Struggle Learning New Software
Understanding how older folks go about learning new technology:
Need tutorials
May need someone to walk them through the software
Seek help through google
Comfort with online management systems such as Gcal or OneDrive?
Most are somewhat comfortable but need help from tutorials
HOW MIGHT WE..??
How might we design a case management system that presents all relevant information in a single intuitive view?
How might optimize a user’s workflow to minimize the time and effort required by defense attorneys during court proceedings, enabling a fast and frictionless experience?
How might we create a robust calendaring system for defense attorneys to efficiently manage upcoming court dates?
How might we ensure that these designs cater to the demographic of defense attorneys, enabling them to use Casify without confusion or ambiguity?
OUR SOLUTION:
DASHBOARD
A dashboard would be a solution to having a single intuitive view that would include all the relevant information such as the current cases, notes, transcription, files, and a calendar system.
IDEATION:
THE FIRST IDEAS
The team sketched out ideas for a dashboard view that would present all relevant info such as files, clients, calendar, and notes
And then we everything changed...
Our client stated that the dashboard view gave them:
so we scrapped our sketches and started over....
REASSESSING OUR CLIENTS NEEDS
All content shown on one screen so that it’s easily accessible but NOT A DASHBOARD
Tabs for cases and a calendar to toggle between
Be able to see multiple dates for a case at once
Find the necessary files in a timely manner
Available function to access notes anywhere on Casify -> Be able to pull up files while having a note open, Be able to organize notes based on case
Seamless and frictionless experience
KEY RESEARCH FINDING
DEFINE PRODUCT FEATURES
1
HOME PAGE: VIEW ALL CASES
List of cases with a snapshot of case name, client name, case type, next court date, and status (active or resolved)
Be able to filter cases by active or resolved
Search for cases using keywords
2
CASE VIEW
View all information of a case
View and upload files
View all notes for the case
Check on the transcription status of video and audio files
3
CALENDAR PAGE
Toggle between monthly and weekly view
Create events and assign it to a case
USER FLOW:
Informed by our research insights, we created a user flow in collaboration with our client Career Services to outline the step-by-step journey students take as they interact with the platform:
FINAL DESIGNS
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LOCATION
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ROLE
Explore career paths by role to gain insights on job responsibilities, required skills, and industry trends
WHAT I’D DO DIFFERENTLY: 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS
Research- Card Sorting: Gain insights about users' mental model of an information space and can help determine the best information architecture
More Testing Sessions: Difficult to set up meetings with defense attorneys due to their schedules
Research- Field Studies: Understand defense attorney’s workflow while they are in action