​​Seeking Legal Help Online: Understanding the ‘missing majority’

Part one provides a rationale for the focus on certain priority groups and the types of legal problems and online self-help resources explored. It introduces the participants and describes the methods and resources used to better understand the journeys of people in the ‘missing majority’.

People in the missing majority use online resources not only to understand and resolve their legal problems but also sometimes to help others. This research highlights the strengths and frustrations of this highly capable and determined cohort. The insights in part two include: 

How people search for legal help online

A Google search is the first step in a help-seeker’s attempt to resolve a legal problem on their own. While most people initially search by describing their problem in everyday terms, some search specifically for organisations to help them. The first set of insights describes the variety and mixed results of searching techniques used by participants in this research.

What the self-help journey is like

The challenge of solving legal problems on your own is explored in the second set of insights. Legal jargon is confusing for most people who haven’t studied law; the rules and procedures of the legal system can be opaque; and the process to understand and resolve an issue can be incredibly time-consuming. Even if help-seekers have interacted with the legal system before, and have a high level of English literacy and digital capability, they tend to find themselves in a highly stressful situation and are anxious about the outcome.

How different resources can help and how resources are consumed

Help-seekers in the missing majority can identify which online legal self-help resources will work best and when they would use them. The third set of insights presents the results from a card sorting activity along with key themes to show how each type of resource had different ways of supporting the help–seeker. These insights draw on participants’ own analyses and explanations of why they would select certain tools, when they would use them, and what combinations of resources would work best for them and their issue.  

Our research participants had confidence in who to trust and what to avoid. If self-help became overwhelming, they would start looking for a professional to help them.  

How resources could be improved

The fourth set of insights covers some of the shortcomings of existing legal resources and the behaviour exhibited by people as they try to decipher and then apply new knowledge. These insights highlight issues of access, trust, accessibility, appropriateness and usefulness. 

Unfortunately, for the missing majority, many of the legal resources they can access online today do not meet their expectations. Looking for practical knowledge to start the process of self-help, or at least to understand their options to make informed decisions, people are quickly overwhelmed by an avalanche of text and information. The missing majority becomes stuck when language is unclear, they don’t have the ‘evidence’ they need to continue their journey, or resources do not work as they should.  

Despite huge advances in digital technology and inclusion, many online legal resources remain limited in their design, mirroring segmented procedures, bureaucratic paperwork, and folded information handouts. Some people with disabilities cannot access or use online legal resources at all because the resources have not been designed with their needs in mind. Resources often also contain overly technical and complex language. 

How help-seekers define a legal problem

The fifth and final set of insights takes us back to the beginning of the self-help journey: the moment when a help-seeker determines they have a legal problem. These insights draw attention to the mental model and challenging circumstances of a diverse range of people who find themselves in need of legal information or assistance.

Overall, the stories from participants and examples from live searches and testing of resources highlight the differences and commonalities of searching for legal help and information online.

Part three of our report presents a series of recommendations and design principles to help improve online legal self-help resources. The recommendations focus on how to involve people with lived experience and relevant professionals in funding, researching, designing, testing, implementing, promoting and evaluating online self-help resources. Suggestions are tailored for this report’s different target audiences: funders, service providers, and resource makers, in five main areas:  

• Invest in information design and user experience  
• Involve people with lived experience in making online resources 
• Break down silos between sectors, organisations, communities, and self-help 
• Establish communities of practice to support makers of online self-help resources 
• Invest in consumer outreach, search engine optimisation, communications, and marketing  

Listed in full below, the design principles offer research-informed, best practice guidelines for the development and deployment of online resources.  

Part Three closes with acknowledgement of the gaps and limitations of this research and practical suggestions for future research to build on the findings presented here. 

Our design principles for online self-help resources

We have developed a set of design principles for online self-help resources that provide a concise summary of learnings and offer research-informed, best practice guidelines for better design and deployment of digital self-help resources.   

Good online self-help resources must:

       be easy to find first by those who need them, when they need them 

       have names that describe what they do 

       set clear expectations 

       be as easy to read as possible 

       describe processes 

       work equally well for everyone 

       be current 

       be quick to use 

       connect to other resources and services 

       build in extra support 

       allow some people to speak to a human 

       be designed with communities. 

Finally, part three closes with acknowledgement of the gaps and limitations of this research and suggestions of practical focus areas for future research to build on the findings presented here.

The appendices provides further details and examples of the research and recruitment design, including images of the actual materials used, pre-interview activity guide and interview questions, and example responses from participants representing each key archetype: the Cautious-Traditionalist and the confident Do-It-Yourself ‘super searcher’.  

We learned that our ‘missing majority’ are extremely persistent and committed to resolving legal problems by themselves. They are also genuinely interested in contributing to projects like these, if it can help the next person or make things better in the future.

We didn’t have too many preconceived notions, apart from one huge one, that almost stopped this project from even happening! When we started this, we almost assumed that that people were busy, vulnerable and unable to participate in this type of research during a pandemic.

Before we threw the towel in, we decided to talk to some community members. See how they felt about our project, if the timing was off, if they thought it was a worthy pursuit.  Going and having those conversations with communities blew our ‘vulnerable people’ myth apart. Not only were our participants able to participate, but they also wanted to. Many told us life felt like it was on hold. Activities and jobs were paused or over, so they wanted to contribute to something meaningful.

We were fortunate to have past participants (and friends) we could check in with to bust our wrong beliefs, in a gentle way. When in doubt or figuring something out D.N.A – Do not assume. Always talk to the person or community directly.

User feedback or community input can fit into all stages of the design process.

• Testing or auditing past designs – to create a new brief or project
• Prioritising projects or pipelines – when creating a roadmap or work plan
• Coming up with new ideas or co-creating them
• Giving feedback when building and testing prototypes

The hard part is often we only get the chance to ask for feedback once, meaning we don’t get the check if you’ve understood their wants and needs correctly — and acted on them correctly, too.

The biggest challenge with gathering users’ feedback is creating a safe and open space to collect it. Often people don’t know what is ‘good feedback’, what to respond too, or are too shy and don’t want to hurt the designers’ feelings.

A way to navigate that space is to present ‘unfinished’ or sketchy designs. They look a bit rough around the edges and are easy to shoot down or add to if needed.

Using a mix of different feedback approaches to test the issue or product from multiple angles. That way you can find out what feature is valuable but also what it sounds like, looks like or the ecosystem it is in. Some examples of different approaches are:

• “make tools” like collages or mood boards to talk about the value/feel of a site,
• card sorting or paper prototyping activities to prioritise features
• When presenting designs, presenting variable options to check in which one is preferred and spark the conversation about why
• Include “canary concepts” in your test which are intended to test whether your user feels safe giving you genuine critical feedback. For example, in this research project, we included a “Learn the Law” video game as an option for users to choose. If no one comments on the concept or finds it strange, then you know you haven’t created an environment for feedback.

Sharing power can be scary and it’s a wild change from how things have been done in the past. The best thing to do to make it less scary is to start small and build relationships and capability/confidence as you go. That is why testing and observing might be a good start, instead of jumping straight to co-design.  

It also helps to create pathways for consumer voices and feedback in the organisation. This helps you gain momentum and value through the process. The last thing you want is to run a co-design project that no-one knows or cares about, as you won’t have support implementing the feedback you gathered or design you created.  

Another good place to start is to get your concerns about sharing power out in the open. Create space to ask yourself and your organisation what is stopping you and what you are worried about. This will help you surface concerns that you can mitigate with a good plan or identify opportunities where you need a bit of help from someone who has done it before.  

Risk aversion around co-design is not unique, so if you find yourself being the lone voice for community involvement, find others in different places to support you get there. You aren’t alone.

We prepared a video to accompany our recruitment efforts for two reasons:  

• To ensure that people who prefer to engage with audio/visual materials instead of text have an opportunity to do so 
• To put faces to the work we were doing, as successful participants would be speaking to Emma and Jo closely during the interviews.  

Having now analysed the online pathways people took before filling in our expressions of interest form, we have concluded that the video was not the most impactful way of driving people to fill in the form in this instance. Instead, it was our direct marketing, organic social media posts to existing sector partners and sharing the call out in closed online communities that resulted in more interest. However, we still acknowledge that recruitment videos can be useful, depending on who we are reaching out to and the purpose for that outreach. We will continue to test, analyse and iterate, and share those learning with our sector colleagues.  

Many of the research activities would work when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but the big thing to ask is “am I the right person to be doing this work?”.  You might want to have a co-design practitioner as a coach, but the research and facilitation should be led from within the community. If you are not an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, you should actively seek guidance from someone from the community. You should also ensure that the person is adequately reimbursed for the work they are contributing to your project. You want the skills, knowledge and power that comes with running this thing to be where it belongs — in the community. 

In any consumer centred research project, it is important that you intentionally set down frameworks for ethical research before commencing the project. These frameworks may change, depending on the needs of the people you are intending to work with.  

For more guidance on conducting ethical research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities, you can have a look at the following resource published by the National Health and Medical Research Council: Ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities | NHMRC