Michigan Supreme Court
The Michigan Supreme Court website provides public access to the state's highest court decisions and legal resources that directly affect residents' rights and lives.
Details
Role
Situational
Timeline
Projected to be 4 months…
Skills
Competitor Analysis, Interaction design, Usability
Team
Tariq Aziz, Kartika Pinjarkar
Status
In progress …
Overview
Our team will evaluate the One Court of Justice website to improve access to critical legal resources for Michigan residents, particularly self-represented litigants navigating the court system for the first time. Through task-based usability testing, we'll assess how easily users can locate essential resources including court forms, case search tools, dispute resolution services, and legal help. We'll conduct timed testing sessions with participants who have no formal legal training, tracking their navigation paths and identifying points of confusion or friction in the user experience.
In addition to usability testing, we'll perform a comparative analysis of the Michigan Supreme Court website against other state court websites, evaluating criteria such as navigation structure, content organization, visual design, and resource findability. Our deliverables will include a comprehensive usability evaluation report with task success rates and time-on-task metrics, a comparative analysis highlighting best practices from peer sites, and actionable recommendations for improving the website's information architecture, labeling, and navigation to better serve the public and reduce barriers to justice.
Stay tuned for more details!
Interviews
🏛️
Stakeholder Interviews
Met with the Michigan Supreme Court team to define scope, understand the "lawyer-centric" design problem, and identify priority case types.
🎙️
8 Semi-Structured Interviews
Participants ranged from a low-English-proficiency immigrant to a business analyst and university instructor, spanning a wide spectrum of backgrounds.
🎯
Recruitment
Snowball sampling, purposive sampling through personal networks, and cold outreach via Slack. Target: Michigan residents 18+ with legal info needs.
🧮
Codification
Coded all transcripts to identify recurring themes and patterns. Produced eight core themes around compounding barriers to access.
🗒️
Notes
Taking notes of all the recurring themes and patterns that were recognized throughout the interviews.
Comparative Evaluation
Our prior research, including eight user interviews and a stakeholder meeting, revealed a consistent problem, i.e, the website was designed by legal professionals for legal professionals, but most of its visitors are everyday people dealing with stressful situations like evictions, divorces, or small claims disputes. This creates a sort of ‘design-audience mismatch.’ Users struggle with legal jargon, can't find what they need, and don't trust themselves to use the site correctly, so they turn to Google, ChatGPT, or Reddit instead.
This comparative analysis asks a practical question: what are other states doing that Michigan could learn from? The goal is not to rank sites but to identify specific, actionable best practices that could help close the gap between how the site works and how real people need it to work.
Key Stat
75%
of Michigan cases involve self-represented litigants
Bounce Rate
60%
of visitors leave the site without finding what they need
Comparators
4 States
Arizona, California, Illinois, Minnesota, each chosen for a distinct strength
Evaluation
6 Criteria
SRL support, navigation, plain language, forms, search, visual design
Methodology
Comparator Selection
We selected four state court websites as comparators: Arizona (azcourts.gov), California (courts.ca.gov), Illinois (illinoiscourts.gov), and Minnesota (mncourts.gov). These were chosen based on stakeholder recommendations and the distinct strengths each site offers. Arizona was flagged for its multilingual forms and prominent Self-Service Center. California was recommended for its modern visual design and clean information architecture. Illinois stood out for its ILAO Easy Form system and dedicated self-help portal. Minnesota was included for its recent site redesign featuring task-based navigation, the Guide & File tool, and an "I am a..." audience selector.
Comparator Profiles
Arizona's site serves the full state judiciary and emphasizes self-service tools with large homepage icons. California's Supreme Court site caters primarily to legal professionals but features an unusually modern interface. Illinois offers a two-tier navigation system with strong audience segmentation and links to the external ILAO platform for guided document preparation. Minnesota's recently redesigned site organizes its entire navigation around user tasks rather than court structure.
Evaluation Criteria
We assessed each site across six dimensions: (1) self-represented litigant support, or how visible and accessible resources are for people without lawyers; (2) navigation and information architecture, covering menu clarity and content organization; (3) plain language and readability, measuring the use of everyday language versus legal jargon; (4) form findability and guided pathways, assessing how easily users can locate, understand, and complete court forms; (5) search functionality, evaluating search bar placement, result quality, and case lookup tools; and (6) visual design and accessibility, covering layout, whitespace, ADA compliance, and language access.
Analytical Tools
Each site was scored on a 1-to-5 scale across all six criteria by team members who independently reviewed the sites and then reconciled scores through group discussion. Scores and supporting evidence were recorded in a comparative matrix.
Comparative Matrix
Strong (4-5)
Moderate (3)
Weak (1-2)
Evaluation Criteria
Michigan
Arizona
California
Illinois
Minnesota
Self-represented litigant support
4/5
3/5
5/5
2/5
4/5
Navigation & information
architecture
3/5
4/5
3/5
4/5
5/5
Plain language & readability
5/5
1/5
4/5
3/5
3/5
Form findability & guided
pathways
2/5
4/5
4/5
4/5
2/5
Search functionality
3/5
3/5
2/5
4/5
4/5
Visual design & accessibility
4/5
5/5
3/5
4/5
4/5
Average
21/30
20/30
21/30
21/30
22/30
Finding 1
Michigan's navigation is built around courts, not what users need to do
A
Michigan Supreme Court
Courts | Administration | Rules
Organized around internal court structure
"How Do I...?" exists but is buried in mega-menu
No audience segmentation on homepage
3/5
B
Minnesota Supreme Court
Help Topics | Find Courts | Pay Fines | File a Case
Every nav item is a task, not a category
"I am a..." audience selector at the top
Reliable breadcrumbs on every subpage
5/5
Recommendation
Restructure top-level navigation around user tasks. Add an audience selector so first-time visitors can self-sort into the right content path.
Last updated March 2026