Product Usage:

“The work is being used to build the product features.” – Client 

Company: Confidential 

Tools: Figma

Time: 3-week design sprint

Team: Desiree Daniels, Timothy Pham, Adrian Kung

My Role: UX Research, Visual Design

 

The Client:

A Contract Data Management company is working on a new product to improve the legal contract creation workflow within a firm. It focuses on storing and cross-referencing multiple legal contract positions within a law firm in order to provide guidance and uphold ideal standards within contract negotiations. The product will be used as a reference guide for legal departments to ensure that standard contracting language is being used to reduce risk. It will streamline this process for users to easily access templates while also capturing user data for analytics.

The Problem:

Writing contract language can be time-consuming for lawyers. Files aren’t stored in well-organized repositories that are easy to access. This means that countless hours are being spent by different lawyers within the same legal department rewriting similar contracts. Lawyers within the same company can also have different standards.  

The Solution:

Create a product that streamlines the legal contract writing process, saving lawyers valuable time and reducing the risk.

3 Key Functions

  1. Make legal positions easily searchable
  2. Get lawyers on the same page to use the same contract language
  3. Prioritize positions based on historical precedent

UX Overview:

  • 7 User Interviews
  • Affinity Map
  • Competitive Research
  • Journey Map
  • User Persona & Stories
  • User Flow 
  • Wireframes
  • High Fidelity Prototypes
  • 4 User Tests

Site Map

Research

Standard Legal Contract Language? I Object.

Quickly learning legal domain knowledge was the first challenge for our team. I began the process by researching the structure of contracts and dissecting them in order to identify common sections and headings of contracts. It turns out that there aren’t any. Contract languaging and information architecture hierarchy drastically varies within different sectors of the law.  The similarities across all industries can only be reduced to a basic skeletal structure of headings, sections of headings, and different options within those sections. 

I reported back to the team so that we could collaborate on writing user interview questions to gather more intel on how lawyers worked. I located six contract lawyers across different industries including entertainment, auto insurance, real estate, and software start-ups to interview. 

User Interviews, 4 Key Takeaways

  1. I search through contracts by keywords, contract type, and titles.
  2. Contracts have standard elements to ensure that they have the necessary language.
  3. I reference online tools and old contracts for language.
  4. I use my company’s preferred template language, but I know it will change based on my client’s needs.

Who are our competitors and what do they do?

Main Functions of Competitor’s Products:

  1. Data Analysis
  2. Document Storage
  3. Contract Creation

Many of the competitors fulfilled 2+ roles with their main or side products.

Who uses this tool?

Users

Paralegals & Admins

As an admin or paralegal, I want to be able to do research for the lawyers I am supporting.

Salesperson

As a salesperson, I want to be able to have a resource to look up negotiation positions so that I can present them to legal to expedite closing the deal.

Senior Partners

As a busy senior partner, I want a master contract reference tool for Junior lawyers to access, so they can be informed before they show me a contract they are working on. It will save time for everyone. 

CEO

As a CEO, I want to be able to see what legal positions my team usually takes so that I know we are working for the company’s highest good.

Stories

Stephen's User Story

Stephen received a new assignment to draft a Clinical Trial Agreement for a returning client that his stakeholders are working with. He pulls the contract together using a master service agreement template that he often references. He meets with the clients to review the contract and his clients took an unexpected position. He can’t find resources related to his company’s contracting language and his deadline is approaching. Stephen consulted other people in the department, which took them away from their projects and wasted time. Stephen was able to finalize the contract, but the senior contracting attorney didn’t feel that the language had protected them under any circumstances. 

Lawyer's User Story

As a lawyer, I want to be able to search for common contract language and legal positions that my company likes to take so that  I can familiarize myself with the lowest amount of risk. In the past, this has been problematic because there are over 200 lawyers at my company. Each department has a shared drive, but it is not well organized. I have a hard time locating old contracts to reference what other positions my colleagues have taken in similar cases. Every contract I write is unique, but it generally covers the same topics. I know that some topics change more often than others and I want to make sure I’m writing the best option for my company and our clients. I enjoy using Position Board because it allows me to look at master templates for each type of contract that I am working on. I can reference the topic, sub-topics, and positions all on the same screen. This feature makes it easy to drill down into the information while still keeping a broad reference of the section of the contract I am working within.  It also shows me the percentage of times that the company has used this same language. If I use the approved position, I know it will be supported by upper management and reduce risk.

“

The more contract language that can be referenced in one place means fewer files that I need to locate for the lawyers so I can focus on other tasks.

Jim the Paralegal

Journey Map

We learned that contracts can be broken down into 4 main parts:

  1. Templates – The document as a whole.
  2. Sections
  3. Subsections
  4. Positions

User Flow

“

I want a master contract reference tool for my junior lawyers to access. I want them to choose a viable position option before they present it to me for sign-off.

Jill the Senior Partner

Wireframes

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Usability Testing

User #2, Test 

Initial Impressions:

  • Easy to understand templates/concepts/subconcepts 
    • Rely on the search and pinned items for quick access
  • The percentage is % of time user used
  • “Sample” language 
  • Record position = note-taking
  • Pink dot = something you’ve searched before
  • The learning curve is low

 

Problems:

  • Highlighted = search results not selected
  • Confusion about “pinned non-standard” —> pink dot
  • Confused about “actual language” vs. recommended language
  • Highlighted = popular/more commonly used
  • State-specific (??) 

Redesign of UI Cards

Before

After

User #1, Test 

Initial Impressions:

    • Create templates
    • Access templates/concepts/subconcepts
    • Shows what I’ve pinned/recently visited in categories
  • Rely on search and pinned items for quick access
    • UI is easy to understand
    • Concept > Subconcept > Position hierarchy is understandable
  • View tagged = something user has tagged before
  • Percentage is % of time user used
  • Likes the comment system

 

Problems:

  • Confusion around “open template” —> open the whole contract
  • Confusion around “!”
  • Concepts don’t correspond to previous template page
  • Confusion around “welcome page”
  • Confusion around “view tagged” 
  • Confusion around percentage 
  • Who is the client? Counterparty or internal client

Redesign of UI Cards

Client Feedback

  1. Liked the pinned and ‘used previous’ feature.
  2. Liked the 3-panel workflow idea to break down the contract
  3. Thought the workstation panel was still too small despite the expanded feature
  4. Thought we should take another pass at the UI on the 3-panel page. Look at material design for common patterns.

5. Commented that they could tell that we put a lot of time into the thought process of the prototype – pink dot, they also had issues with the symbol.

6. On the 3 column page, put more space around the boxes, the margins are too slim

Next Step Recommendations

Lawyer’s like to see full contract drafts to be able to track how unique positions were arrived at.

  • Include examples of full contracts to learn about the thought process behind the decisions.

Changing from “Concept” to “Subconcept” – our research indicated that section/subsection related better to lawyers.

  • Further research may be required to identify the terminology that would best fit.