DESIGN FOR JUSTICE

We rarely think that design can have anything to do with justice. In the minds of most people, design is about making things work well and look pretty. But this is quite a limited view of design. In truth, this field has much more to offer.

Design principles can significantly enhance the experience of those who seek justice.
Let’s see how.

Design + law = legal design

Design is a deliberate approach to problem-solving and innovation to achieve specific objectives or fulfill particular needs. As a general approach, it can be applied to various fields, and so we talk about ‘fashion’ or ‘graphic’ design, but also about ‘system’, ‘product’, ‘policy’ or ‘organization’ design.

Since most outcomes of design processes are used by people, human-centred design has emerged as a way of creating solutions based on the needs, preferences and experiences of the people who will use them. It starts with understanding the problem from the users’ perspective, followed by generating ideas that address their pain points and wishes so that the solutions produced respond seamlessly to the users’ needs and goals.

What does this have to do with justice?

Application of human-centred design to justice solutions and pathways resulted in a movement to make the legal system work better for people, now commonly referred to as ‘legal design’.

It extends to the design of documents, systems, workflows, services, products, policies and spaces, asking how they can be made better, easier to use, and provide more value to users.

For example, legal design can help make complex extensive legal information easier to understand through visualizations, simplifications, workflows, or other means suitable to the case at hand. Or it can create an application that takes a whole category of uncontested separation issues out of the hands of legal institutions, settling them online instead.

People-centred design

In our previous blog post, we explored the concept of people-centred justice, an approach gaining increasing recognition which aims to enhance the quality of the justice system. This approach prioritizes an understanding of the specific needs of justice services users, subsequently identifying effective strategies to address those needs, catering to diverse societal groups.

Drawing upon the principles of human-centred design, legal design places a strong emphasis on creating solutions which are finely tuned to the preferences and requirements of the end-users.

In essence, it provides an ideally complementary how to the what of people-centred justice. 

Empowerment by design

Human rights have been central to the work of the United Nations since its inception, and a human rights-based approach is one of the guiding principles of UN development cooperation with host countries. Such an approach is normatively based upon international human rights standards and aims for human rights principles, including participation, inclusion and accountability, to guide all development cooperation.

In practical terms, this means that people are recognized as key actors in their own development, rather than passive recipients of goods and services, and that the strategies employed empower, and do not disempower, the people targeted. Participation thus becomes both a means and a goal of UN development interventions.

By focusing on how people engage with justice services and navigate justice systems, legal design seeks to enhance their experience and deliver value. Mitigating confusion and discouragement, it allows individuals to feel smarter and more in control when faced with legal challenges.

Through a deep understanding of user preferences and objectives, legal design can foster innovation that inherently upholds dignity and agency. This is achieved by crafting environments, interfaces, and tools that enhance user comprehension and wisdom, ultimately rebalancing the relationship between the individual and the bureaucracy.

In essence, legal design translates empowerment from concept into action. It combines with co-design principles – shifting from designing for to designing with, and challenging the unilateral power of decision-makers impacting the lives of others (often without their involvement).

By doing so, legal design becomes an optimal methodology for translating the fundamental UN programming principle of a human-rights-based approach from theory into practical implementation.

One good example of placing co-design to the fore of UN development intervention is a recently published Legal Needs Survey from the Access to Justice section at UN Women Asia Pacific, created with and for women living with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities.

Designing the path forward

The design approach also offers useful assistance in navigating the complex journey from understanding the right problem to choosing the best solution. The importance of this process cannot be overstated, because working on the wrong problem seldom leads to the right solution.

The design approach provides powerful tools and methods, often visualized as the ‘double diamond’ process.

In essence, this process involves initially diverging to explore an array of potentially interrelated problems, gaining a deep understanding of the context at hand. The next step in the process is dedicated to converging upon the key problem that needs to be addressed.

Following this, the ‘double diamond’ process diverges once more, to explore various potential solutions for the identified problem and then select the one that best addresses the needs of those who will use the solution.

Learning how to fit right

Following an innovative design process like this can help us to avoid spending time and effort on solutions that do not fit. Such as in the case of a colleague stationed in a country known for its bitterly cold winters.

A marginalized community was supported by receiving beautifully designed booklets, explaining their rights and printed on glossy paper. At the end of a long, cold winter, it was time to evaluate the intervention.

The overwhelming feedback from the community centred on one sentence:

“Glossy paper doesn’t burn well!”

After all, doing things right is infinitely less important than doing the right thing[PB1]

IN CONCLUSION, LET’S PONDER SOME QUESTIONS:

• How can we mobilize legal stakeholders to embrace legal design in improving the user experience within justice systems?
• In which ways can legal design be further refined to align with diverse user preferences and needs, empowering those who face significant barriers to accessing justice?
• What challenges might we expect when integrating legal design principles, particularly co-design methodologies, into existing justice systems? And how can we address them to support such integration?

Let us know what you think: [ Click to reveal ]

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