Key Tools for Designing User-Friendly Legal Content
Optical character recognition software, e-discovery, and AI-powered databases and legal analytics tools have automated a significant proportion of legal practice. These ‘infrastructural legal tools’ do not necessarily produce user-friendly legal content that fits the background of the target audience.
This list of tools for designing user-friendly legal content is based on two criteria: tools’ overall impact on content creation, and tools’ ease-of-use.
The list includes the following tools:
· Qlik, Tableau and IBM Cognos for analytics and visualization;
· MindMeister and MeisterTask for mind-mapping and task management;
· Scrivener, Hemingway, WordRake, BriefCatch, Grammarly and PerfectIt for writing and editing;
· Canva, GNU Image Manipulation Program and Adobe Photoshop for design;
· Calameo, MagLoft and Adobe InDesign for digital publishing.
Analytics
Analytical tools extract knowledge from data and present findings as visualizations. They are useful in, for example, determining KPIs and analyzing geographical spreads and rates of product defects and accidents.
Non-technical users like lawyers should have little trouble mastering the essentials of Qlik, Tableau and IBM Cognos.
Tableau’s data exploration platform is straightforward. First-time users can start creating analytics and visualizations after only a few hours of practice. Because Tableau is a query-based tool, it is helpful for non-technical users if they have some prior understanding of the connections within and between data they are analyzing. Use Tableau to analyze the data coming out of a field where you have some knowledge, for example, to analyze accident rates if you practice accident liability law.
Qlik’s powerful and rather unique associative engine can detect not-so-obvious connections between data. Use it to analyze the data coming out of a field where you have little-to-no background knowledge.
IBM Cognos with its powerful AI, is fit for in-depth analytics and automated production of reports in plain language. The drawback is that Cognos requires more technical abilities, resources and know-how than either Qlik or Tableau.
Writing and Editing
Until AI can independently write all kinds of legal documents without any human input or supervision, writing and editing will remain a large part of lawyering.
Although lawyers can produce many legal documents without a second thought for the task at hand, some problems require lengthy writing and the development of new ideas. When the length of a document and the pressure of tight deadlines call for team writing, use Scrivener for writing, and divide tasks up among team members using MeisterTask, a Kanban-style online task management tool. MeisterTask incorporates MindMeister, a mind-mapping tool for focusing and visualizing ideas, which you can also use independently of the overall package.
For quick editing of short blogs and posts, Hemingway is the first point-of-call. Hemingway highlights hard-to-read, wordy, and similar sentences. While is easy to use and free, it is a fully online tool and has no browser or other extensions. Therefore, WordRake and BriefCatch may be better options for concision and clarity if you are editing a longer text.
Grammarly and PerfectIt are designed for detailed proofreading. Not only do Grammarly and PerfectIt do everything that standard word processors do, but they also go beyond, for example, by detecting inconsistent capitalization and application of phrases and words throughout the document. Both Grammarly and PerfectIt have their own unique advantages. Grammarly makes excellent suggestions for rewriting complex sentences, while PerfectIt checks specific legal terms (based on American legal styling), a function that few apps provide.
Do not forget to test the text’s readability before sending it out into the wider world. BriefCatch measures the text’s ‘flow’ and provides an estimation of ‘reading happiness score,’ whereas Grammarly measures clarity, the reader’s engagement, and text delivery based on the target audience’s level of expertise. Regardless of whether the text is an online blog or a brief, these readability tests help adjust the tone and choice of words to the intended audience’s expectations.
Visualizations and Design
Lawyers trade in (too many) words, and are not particularly keen on images. This is unfortunate, as — as the old adage goes — a picture is worth a thousand words. Try and spare others unnecessary reading and page-turning (with a proliferation of footnotes saying ‘see Appendix X’), and condense wordy messages down to an image if possible.
Frequently used visualizations like charts, tables, and graphs are easily created in Qlik and Tableau. Tableau’s dashboard makes the creation of simple visualizations and fit-for-presentation data-based stories reasonably easy. In my view, Qlik is the better choice for ambitious users of visualization tools: its interface guides the user through the process of creating a greater variety of well-designed visualizations that summarize large amounts of data.
Canva is a cute tool for quickly creating memorable infographics: its topical free templates and a simple-but-powerful interface can satisfy even those wannabe artists among us. For more advanced sketching and graphic design, consider using the open-source GNU Image Manipulation Program (for free) or Adobe Photoshop (for a fee).
Publishing
Documents that were once exclusively available in printed form are now commonly read on smartphones, tablets and laptops. Help your audience, by transforming traditional print into interactive content that can be easily shared and read across different devices.
For a modest fee, Calameo can turn PDFs, spreadsheets, and word processing documents into visually attractive magazines. To transform traditional print into an interactive app with multimedia using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, utilize MagLoft. If the content will be circulated as both print and interactive content, Adobe InDesign might be worth your consideration.
Creating user-friendly legal content is the next frontier of law. Only tradition stands in the way of breaking down the barriers, and turning (a significant proportion of) legal practice into what it essentially is: an exercise in content creation.
