#legaldesign
The application of design methods and philosophy on legal processes and artifacts is an emerging discipline in law, with plenty of yet undiscovered territory. I am most excited about the touch points with interaction design – using the interactive nature of digital tools in legal contexts.
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As a rather young discipline, "legal design" brings together legal practice and design: most commonly it refers to lawyers using design methods in their work – my core interest is the interactive design of legal artefacts.
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Mandated by law under certain circumstances, but always good practice and a sign of inclusive thinking, accessibility statements (and placing them in a navigation scheme) may sometimes be considered merely a compliance chore rather than a subject of good design themselves. In an article on the Deque blog, Patrick Sturdivant highlights a personal perspective on how important a part of UX such statement can be.
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Datenschutz-Transparenz für Sehbehinderte
datenschutz-notizen.de 
This blog post by the German privacy blog “Datenschutz-Notizen” poses more questions than it provides answers, but I find it noteworthy for bringing together three of my core interests: legal design, accessibility and privacy. The text refers to a court ruling from Italy, where the […]
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Visualizing the Length of the Fine Print, for 14 Popular Apps
visualcapitalist.com 
Having referenced Dima Yarovinsky’s exhibition installation “I agree”, visualizing the overwhelming size of web platforms’ “terms and conditions”, on various occasions, this visualization by Nicholas LePan struck a nerve. It naturally lacks the physical […]
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Visualisation of law and legal Process: An opportunity missed journals.sagepub.com
This academic paper is based on a systematic content analysis of legal texts, building a statistic on how often flowcharts and similar visualizations were used to make legal concepts more approachable. The result – astonishingly, but maybe not surprisingly, an almost complete absence of […]
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Algorithmic Transparency
maggieappleton.com 
Maggie Appleton has a “Patterns” section in her digital garden that I very much enjoyed strolling through as we’re obviously thinking along the same lines. The statement on algorithmic transparency cannot be overstated in today’s omni-automated world:
When an automated system recommends a piece of content, it should include an Epistemic Disclosure message explaining why it suggested it, and what factors went into that decision.
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In this final session of the “Conversations on Legal Design” seminar series, Dr. Zohar Efroni introduced the Weizenbaum Institute’s work on “privacy icons” that aim to convey legal information related to internet users’ privacy rights; as a foundation for the […]
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Contract design for humans: preventing cognitive accidents simplificationcentre.org.uk
In the report "Contract design for humans", Rob Waller presents an interesting perspective on contract design that could easily be translated into other areas of legal design, or even to UX at large. -
This study, based on a survey of 406 individuals, shines light on the fact that end users very much notice when they are misled by deceptive design patterns, yet they still feel manipulated even after noticing that.
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In the “Conversations on Legal Design” series’ third session, Prof. Helena Haapio gave an introduction to her work on contract design and — among other things — promoted “proactive law” as an alternative way of looking at law and […]
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In the second seminar of the "Conversations on Legal Design" series, Prof. Monica Palmirani introduced the concept of legal ontology -- more specifically the requirement for legal design artefacts to maintain the detailed information of the legal context. -
In the first of four "Conversations on Legal Design" seminar sessions, Dr. Arianna Rossi challenged participants to consider legal design from different perspectives: legal design is not just a problem-solving methodology, but also a framework for empirical research in legal and design challenges alike. Yet, its true potential may actually lie in envisioning alternative futures at large. -
If you’re working with privacy notices for the web, chances are that you have seen the privacy policy of juro.com, which rose to fame during the 2018 spring of GDPR panic as an example of legal design applied in a real-world project. Juro and Stefania Passera, the designer behind the project […]
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Design Issues – Special Issue: The Rise of Legal Design direct.mit.edu
An entire special issue of Design Issues dedicated to legal design as an emerging discipline! This (paywalled) journal contains a whole range of articles with perspectives on #legal design […]
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In this interview, Arianna Rossi summarizes her definition of “legal design” as
[…] an interdisciplinary approach that promotes human-centered design to prevent or solve legal problems, by prioritizing the point of views of all the users of law.
She highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the discipline, the preventive approach (avoiding legal risk by good design), and the broad audiences far beyond legal practitioners […] -
This podcast episode, hosted by Carol Hannud, is a comprehensive and very personal intro into legal design, told by four pioneers of the discipline — through the lens of how they ended up working in this field and how they look at it […]
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IACCM Contract Design & Pattern Library contract-design.iaccm.com
The Contract Design Pattern Library is an open and growing reference of design patterns for creating usable contracts in the “legal design” spirit.
This Library, curated by World Commerce & Contracting, is an ongoing collection of contract design patterns – […]
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This follow-up on the "layered approach" discusses the EDPB guidelines’ suggestions for shaping the transparency information itself: content, language, accessibility, intelligibility, etc. -
Law By Design — the book by Margaret Hagan lawbydesign.co
This “living e-book” by Margaret Hagan — summarizing her learnings of 3+ years of practice — is likely the best primer to be found on the topic of “legal design”:
This book sets forth an agenda for innovation in legal services, with practical, agile […]
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A summary of the Legal Design Summit Helsinki 2017.
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The EDPB’s official “Guidelines on Transparency” under GDPR are a valuable, yet little-known, resource for designers. In this article, I examine the 40-pager for contributions on putting individuals in control of their personal data through user-centred design - beyond compliance […]
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Privacy by Design: Building a Privacy Policy People Actually Want to Read artificiallawyer.com
A detailed walk-through of the design process behind juro.com’s acclaimed attempt to create a user-centered privacy policy document (see here) through a rigorous legal design process.
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Baltasar, Joschi and I discuss importance and implications of the GDPR for web designers and developers - on the Working Draft podcast, hosted by Hans Christian Reinl. -
The efficient combination of legal risk management and privacy-sensitive design ensures a good ROI for GDPR compliance efforts. -
Internalizing the history and philosophy behind the General Data Privacy Regulation is key for every designer in privacy-critical contexts. The GDPR is not a law that specifies detailed demands for consent forms or the like—it is a change agent for embracing ethical principles in dealing with personal data, across the EU and beyond.
