Lawyer Document Management System

Designing an internal document management system

for the American College of Real Estate Lawyers

O V E R V I E W

We worked for the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL) to evaluate Shares, their internal Microsoft SharePoint website. Through our work, we identified the core user need to be delivering a user-friendly and accessible document management system (DMS).

The undefined problem space posed a unique challenge with the added complexity of designing for lawyers and a broad age range. We executed the end-to-end design process by conducting discovery research, synthesizing insights to define the problem, developing solutions, and delivering a two-option recommendation based on user and business needs:

💡 Shares 2.0 - the redesigned website increasing usability by 83%

💡 Rubex - a DMS SaaS platform

Our team pitched the recommendation and discussed implementation next steps at ACREL’s October 2021 annual meeting in Nashville, TN.

Role
Project Manager & UX Researcher/Designer - main areas of responsibility were discovery research, affinity mapping, problem definition, and Shares 2.0 prototyping
Type
Graduate Capstone Team Project
Duration
March - October 2021 (8 months)
Tools
Figma, Google Forms, Zoom, Miro, Optimal Workshop, and Maze.co

B A C K G R O U N D

ACREL is a prestigious organization for U.S. lawyers specializing in commercial real estate. Over 1,000 members, called Fellows, organize themselves into interest-based committees which meet regularly to discuss trending industry topics.

User age range: 30s - 90s

Average user age: 65 years

Leadership suspected that Shares, their internal Microsoft SharePoint website, was no longer used. Our goal was to uncover why and provide a solution.

Original Shares website

D I S C O V E R Y R E S E A R C H

What is Shares? Why was Shares created?

Historical Artifacts

A thorough analysis of Shares documentation allowed us to gain a solid contextual understanding.

💡 Core Shares functions: committee administration, collaboration, and document library

💡 Shares’s purpose: reduce email search for documents and create a secure place for committee resources

Heuristic Evaluation

We applied Nielsen Norman’s 10 industry-standard usability heuristics to explore and assess Shares.

💡 Strengths: flexibility in searching for documents and efficient preview feature

💡 Weaknesses: inconsistent design, redundant information architecture, and insufficient feedback on website position

Automated Accessibility Check

Due to ACREL’s average Fellow being a senior citizen and the site not being updated since 2016, checking accessibility was of utmost importance.

💡 Does not meet WCAG guidelines: contrast issues, redundant navigational links, and many missing HTML references

Website Map (2).png — **Website Map**

We created a website map to grasp the full scope of Shares.
💡 50+ pages with various features
💡 Most pages were unused and not updated for several years (e.g. committee pages)
💡 Document library only section with recent updates

How do users use Shares? What are users’ pain points?

Survey 55 participants, quantitative and qualitative questions, remote on Google Forms

Our team wanted to understand Fellows’ familiarity with and usage of Shares.

💡 Shares SUS score: 36/100

💡 61% didn’t use Shares or accessed it yearly

💡 80% used Shares for the document library

Interview Screenshot.png — **Interviews** *9 interviews, semi-structured, remote on Zoom, 1 hr long*

Survey responses guided interview questions. We wanted to gain deep qualitative insights into the experience users have with Shares.
We interviewed users from 3 distinct groups: ACREL administrative staff, Shares founders - the original website creators, and Fellows.
💡 Shares was intended to enhance the value of ACREL membership by improving access to the extensive knowledge Fellows have
💡 100% reported login difficulties as an obstacle in using Shares
💡 Pain points: outdated information, login difficulties, and website usability concerns

💡

“Shares is not intuitive…It has been difficult to retrieve documents, upload documents, etc. There is a ton of great information on the site, but it is too difficult to access it.”

- Fellow

R E S E A R C H S Y N T H E S I S

Synthesizing insights into a cohesive story

Collaboration Model (1).png — **Collaboration Model** *contextual inquiry diagram*

Contextual inquiry diagrams help connect the dots between context, stakeholders, and human behavior to extract meaning from these connections.
Our team used a collaboration model to analyze the process of a Fellow creating a presentation.
💡 Major breaking points when Fellows directly contact administrators for help
💡 Fellows rely heavily on trusted, in-network sources for information

Affinity Mapping

We sorted research findings to identify emerging problem categories. We began grouping based on similarity and ended by identifying actionable features that insights related to.

Initial layout of insights grouped by research method

Final affinity map organization based on features and derived team insights

P R I M A R Y C H A L L E N G E

Provide an accessible document management system (DMS) that is easy to search and share expert content from

S E C O N D A R Y C H A L L E N G E

Improve the login experience so members can easily access expert content

T H E U S E R S

We created 3 user personas to represent different user groups’ expectations and priorities.

D E V E L O P I N G S O L U T I O N S

Identifying user priorities and alternate software options

Senior Citizen Technology User primary research

Considering the average age of membership was 65 years, we read literature to understand how this could affect human factors and technology usage.

💡 Older users can have impaired eyesight, haptic deterioration, reduced hearing, and reduced memory

**User Needs & Features**

We outlined user needs statements, derived related features, and then prioritized them based on importance to ensure we would address user needs.

**Competitive Analysis** *10 new evaluated*

The goal was to understand DMS best practices and identify alternate software options that met user needs.
💡 ACREL is a non-profit, so most options were eliminated due to budget restrictions
💡 Rubex was a viable option meeting both budget and feature requirements

Cognitive Walkthrough 1 participant, moderated, remote on Zoom

The goal was to observe how an actual Fellow searches for a document on Shares. We knew this would be extremely helpful in designing the DMS.

💡 Simplify Shares navigation

💡 Increase visibility of system status specifically for filter application

💡 Make Shares more familiar by analogizing to tools lawyers are currently using (e.g. Microsoft Outlook)

User Flows

At this point, we understood the navigation architecture had to be considerably restructured. We wanted to identify the competing pathways used when users search for a document to find one to prioritize.

💡 Too many pathway choices, but no clear-cut method to always select

Filter Architecture Card Sorts 43 participants, unmoderated, remote on Optimal Workshop

We wanted to answer these questions to guide our designs: how do Fellows intuitively organize documents? and how do Fellows apply search filters to find documents?

💡 Users mostly grouped documents by topic then committee

💡 Creating a folder structure would be ineffective because topic naming conventions are subjective and not all documents have a committee tag

💡 Users’ order when applying filters to find a document: 1. committee 2. document type 3. date 4. author 5. location

T H E S O L U T I O N

Two-option recommendation

We recommend ACREL selects one out of these two options based on user and business needs

1️⃣

Shares 2.0
Fully customized Shares redesign to provide a robust DMS experience on Microsoft SharePoint
4 - 6 months to implement
Cost estimate: about $89,000 for custom design
2️⃣

Rubex
Great ready-made DMS SaaS alternative that also addresses user needs, but with fewer customization capabilities
3 - 4 months to implement
Cost estimate: $25,000 total for 5-year license

1️⃣

S H A R E S 2 . 0

The redesigned website

Core Design Decisions

To address insights from our work, we developed a solution based on these core design decisions:

Simplified navigation architecture to emphasize one starting point for finding documents
3-pane screen structure similar to Microsoft Outlook to promote ease of use
Document list organization resembling Windows File Explorer to promote familiarity
“Search and filtering” document finding mechanism inspired by Autotrader’s car finding workflow because users are trying to find all documents that fit criteria

**Design Inspiration**
We collected images from popular DMS and law interfaces to inspire our color, typography, and workflow design to promote user familiarity.

Sketching to Wireframing

Using our design inspiration, we started by sketching ideas and then created higher fidelity wireframes.

**Branding**
Logo: “Shares” added to the existing logo to highlight the separate platform.
Typography: Roboto fonts selected for readability and variable stroke widths.
Color: Primary colors compliment existing ACREL branding. Bold highlight orange-yellow color used to emphasize rollovers and highlights.

Robust Search & Filtering

Start search with keyword or filter

Filter options auto limit with keyword search
Search within filters to reduce scrolling

Main Features

Easy Document Uploading

Required fields to maintain data integrity

Autofilled document title and author

Document Favoriting

Favorite documents and organize into folders

Usability Testing quantitative test, 25 participants, unmoderated, remote on Maze.co

We tested core features and received very positive feedback. Design changes implemented after testing: making entire filter category section heading clickable for expansion and widening scroll bar on filtering pane

💡

S E E I N G R E S U L T S

83% increase in usability after redesign

Shares 2.0 SUS score: 66/100

2️⃣

R U B E X

A DMS SaaS platform

Rubex is a ready-made solution to address user needs. We created a prototype showcasing customization capabilities such as colors, logos, and certain iconography.

Before implementing this platform, we highly recommend testing the product with users to make final usability improvements.

C O N C L U S I O N

Our graduate capstone project allowed us to complete the end-to-end design process with special emphasis on discovery research to identify core user pain points.

We presented a two-option recommendation including Shares 2.0, our design concept for ACREL’s DMS which resulted in an 83% increase in system usability.

Next Steps
ACREL invited our team to present at their October 2021 annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. We pitched our findings and held a discussion to help ACREL decide on a recommendation. Ultimately, they selected Shares 2.0, so we are currently contacting developers to implement the redesign.

Reflection

💡 Trust the process - I was initially nervous as to how insights would link to identify the primary problem. I learned to trust how UX methods and tools can be skillfully applied and combined to tackle challenging real-world problems.

💡 Prioritize - Identifying core user needs was imperative because of time constraints. I am thankful I got to apply my data analysis skills to help my team identify and prioritize emerging insight themes while affinity mapping.

💡 “The one” - With real-world business constraints, sometimes there is not just one solution. It is our job to thoroughly research the pros and cons of the options available, but it is okay to have multiple solutions to present to stakeholders. That way, they are empowered to make the best decision for themselves.

Team pic.png — **The Capstone Team** *9/11/21*

4/5 of the team meeting for the first time in person at our UC Irvine MHCID graduation!