Sixth National Court

Technology Conference

(CTC6)

September 14-16, 1999Los Angeles Convention

Center

Best Practicesin Delivering

Court Informationto the Public

902

People v. Court Website

Fails to deliver useful information in useable formats

Improve Your Website

ReviewReview

RefocusRefocus

RefineRefine

Cheryl Nyberg

•Law librarian•Twenty years of experience

•Author, witness, daily user of the Web

American Association of Law Libraries

•5,000 members

•www. aallnet.org

Thurgood Marshall

Only real source of a judge’s power . . . is the respect of the people.

Improve Public Trust & Confidence

Improve communications

Become more

inclusive

Simplifyprocedures

Public Internet Access

•26% of U.S. households

•33% of Americans•760 new households per hour

Review

•What is the purpose of the website?

•Who is the audience for the website?

Grade A Website Goal

To delivery timely and useful court information in convenient and useable formats to all citizens.

Brand X Website Goal

To provide selected court information in original formats to attorneys using the latest version of IE5.

Grade A vs. Brand X

•New opinions posted as released by the courts

•Opinions posted irregularly, as the web-master has time

Grade A vs. Brand X

•Full range of useful infor-mation: opinions, forms, rules, etc.

•Selected documents, hit or miss

Grade A vs. Brand X

•Search by name, subject, keyword, date, docket number

•Arranged by date of decision only

Grade A vs. Brand X

•ASCII, HTML & other formats that don’t require additional software

•Word-processed, PDF or other formats requiring viewers

Grade A vs. Brand X

•Text-only option

•Early browser compatible

•No text-only option

•Requires latest browser

Grade A vs. Brand X

•Law for the layperson is jargon-free

•Glossary defines legal terms

•Legalese abounds

•No material for the lay-person

Which website does the Court of Public Opinion

find guilty?

Review Actions

•Write website mission statement & audience

•Secure agreement from all affected court staff

•Post on the website FAQ

From Review to Refocus

•Content•Coverage•Currency•Constancy•Contact

Content Is King

A website with poor content is a royal pain!

Don’t Post

Items that would jeopardize personal privacy or court security

From Review to Refocus

•Content•Coverage•Currency•Constancy•Contact

Coverage of Opinions

•Only slip opinions

•Mid-1990s•Historical

Oklahoma Is OK!•Supreme, 1957

• Civil App., 1968

•Criminal App., 1943

Robert H. Jackson

No books . . . which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.

Court Partners

Law schools/libraries in FL, IN, KS, NJ & SCLaw schools/libraries in FL, IN, KS, NJ & SC

Bar associationsin IA, MI, RI & SDBar associationsin IA, MI, RI & SD

From Review to Refocus

•Content•Coverage•Currency•Constancy•Contact

Currency

From Review to Refocus

•Content•Coverage•Currency•Constancy•Contact

Broken Links

•May 1999 Article includes links to 94 external websites

•Aug. 1999 10 of 94 links are broken. Failure rate = 10 %

Constancy

I solemnly swear to resist gratuitous website rearrange-ment.

From Review to Refocus

•Content•Coverage•Currency•Constancy•Contact

Contact

Recap

•ReviewMission statementAudience

Recap, cont’d

•Refocus Content Coverage Currency Constancy Contact

Helen Keller

“Great and noble [are] the tiny pushes of each honest worker. “

Refine

Arrangement Appearance

Formats Accessibility

Arrangement

Take off your blinders!

Think Out of the Box

•By subject•By document type

•By user

Formats

•ASCII & HTML•Word-processed•Graphical (PDF)•Databases•Compressed (zipped)

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Format Rules

Appropriate Notify

Link Consistent

Accessibility

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium

www.w3c.org

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, May 1999

Accessibility Guidelines

AlternativesNot only

colorProper

markup

Clarify usage

Graceful tables

Gracefultechnology

Usercontrol

W3C Guidelines, cont’d

Embeddedinterfaces

Device-independence

Interimsolutions

W3Cguidelines

Context &orientation

Clearnavigation

Cleardocuments

DOJ, 1996

Covered entities under the ADA are required . . . to offer communications through accessible means.

Accessibility Don’ts

Mission statement & audience

Content

Coverage

Currency

Constancy

Contact

Arrangement

Appearance

Formats

Accessibility

10 Elements

What’s Ahead?•Content•Quick fixes•Deficiencies•Plan, prioritize & delegate

•Do it!

Changing Technology

•Deploy selectively & carefully

•Embrace new technology that benefits all users

Bobby

www.cast.org/bobby

AALL & AELIC

www.aallnet.org/committee/infotek/aelicweb/index.html

CTC6 Lab Time

Thursday12-2

Listservs

GovPublistserv@listserv.nodak.edu

sub govpub Your Name

James Madison

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.

Cheryl Nyberg

•cnyberg@u.washington.edu

•206/543-7672•206/685-2165 (fax)

Sixth National Court Technology Conference

(CTC6)