The NYS Courts Signage Project was a Design for America NYU and New York State Unified Court System collaboration tackling a problem many of us will eventually face: navigating courthouses. With support from Rochelle Klempner and the Access to Justice program, we audited the way-finding systems of 6 NY State Courts to assess the experience and to provide suggestions for how to make them more accessible for unrepresented litigants. Through human-centered design principles and an iterative design process we aimed to solve: how can we help people of diverse backgrounds better navigate NYS courts?

I WORKED ON

Research, service design, idea concepting, presentation

I COLLABORATED WITH

Jasmine Chabra (project lead), Sameehan Patel (project lead), Gabriella Cammarata (visual & service design), Lillian Warner (service design), Shuling Chen (service design), Anne-Laure Fayard (project mentor), Alison Rand (project advisor, Frog Design), Craig LaRos(project advisor, Frog Design), and Lauren Wood (project advisor, Frog Design).

Research

The first phase of the project consisted of in-depth research of the NYS Courts unified system, its visitors, and its employees. We visited 6 courts in New York City, where we did fly-on-the-wall observation, noticing how court visitors interacted with the space, we interviewed current and past employees, and documented way finding artifacts. We also conducted desk research focused on way-finding systems in similar environments, such as hospitals, airports and public spaces and the psychology of information intake during highly emotional experiences.

METHODS

Field research, fly-on-the-wall observation, user interviews, desk research

INSIGHTS & Feedback

To synthesize our research findings and distill them into insights, we used the Collective Action Toolkit by Frog Design. We presented our work-in-progress insights to our mentors at Frog as well as to our client/sponsor at Access to Justice. Their feedback helped us adjust the direction of the solutions we were going to create.

METHODS

Research synthesis, process mapping, HMWs ideation, card sorting

IDEATION

For the ideation phase, we created user personas based on our research and we designed user journeys for each of them. This allowed us to start prototyping concepts and ideas with a specific set of end users in mind.

Some of the concepts we prototyped were physical wayfinding signs, court maps toolkits, juror letter inserts, as well as an initial version of a sign-making styleguide. The styleguide was user tested and was later developed into one of our final products for the client.

METHODS

Physical prototyping, bodystorming, user testing

FINAL REPORT & STYLEGUIDE

As a final deliverable, we created a design audit report summarizing our research findings and insights, as well as our proposed solutions. We also created a styleguide that could be distributed to employees to direct them in creating better signage for the courts.