Essential Guidelines for Legal Aid Websites

Published: May 16th, 2025

For legal aid websites, usability isn't just about convenience—it's about justice. When people facing eviction, domestic violence, or crushing debt visit your website, they're likely feeling in crisis and seeking crucial assistance. If they encounter confusing navigation or overwhelming intake forms, they don't just experience frustration—they can lose access to critical legal protections and services.

Traditional website evaluation methods can fail to capture these high-stakes challenges. This is where a heuristics evaluation can be useful. A heuristics evaluation is a structured way to assess websites against practical usability guidelines known as heuristics. While Jakob Nielsen's classic usability heuristics work well for feature-rich software and websites, legal aid platforms need guidelines that assume large amounts of text and ways to make that information accessible with plain language, crisis navigation, and dignity-preserving interactions.

In early 2025, our team partnered with Legal Aid Chicago and Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) to conduct a comprehensive heuristic evaluation of their "Get Legal Help" tool—a critical system that connects over a million Illinois residents with legal assistance each year. In this article, we share a summary of the specialized heuristics we developed for legal services websites, along with practical guidance on how to apply them to your own platforms.

Overview of the Heuristics

Our complete framework contains eight comprehensive categories with over 70 individual heuristics. Here's an overview of each category:

1. Guide users through clear pathways

Legal aid users often arrive with urgent needs and high stress levels. Clear pathways become essential when users may be in crisis or have limited time to navigate complex systems.

Examples: 

• Site purpose is immediately clear on landing

• Clear calls to action guide users forward

• Ensure users can start over easily

For instance: Implement a consistent visual progress indicator throughout multi-step processes and setting clear expectations about overall time commitment upfront. Users should always know where they are in the process and how many steps remain.

2. Optimize for legal aid context

Ensure you address legal-specific concerns like explaining eligibility criteria, setting appropriate expectations about service availability, or providing alternatives when users don't qualify for direct representation.

Examples:

• Before the user invests time, ensure geographic boundaries, service limitations, and eligibility criteria are communicated

• Crisis resources are prominently displayed

• Alternative resources are provided when users don't qualify

For instance: Clearly communicate what service connections actually mean in practice—use concrete language about "lawyers" rather than abstract terms like "organizations," and provide realistic timelines for assistance.

3. Present clear and accessible content

Legal content often suffers from inaccessible language and terminology. This category emphasizes plain language, appropriate reading levels, and dignity-preserving communication.

Examples:

• Use plain language principles throughout all content

• Avoid legal jargon or provide clear definitions when necessary

• Form fields use inclusive options and language

• Content avoids stigmatizing or outdated language

For instance: Develop a consistent language style guide for user-facing content that maintains dignity while ensuring clarity, with special attention to consistent terminology across all forms and informational content.

4. Create clear visual hierarchy

When users are stressed or hurried, visual hierarchy through graphic design becomes even more critical for guiding attention and action.

Examples:

• Primary actions should be emphasized and visually distinct from secondary options

• Group related information together visually

• Use consistent formatting for similar types of content

For instance: Establish consistent visual priority systems where primary actions have significantly more visual weight than secondary or tertiary options, making critical next steps immediately apparent.

5. Support multi-device access

Many legal aid users rely on smartphones as their primary or only internet device, often with limited data plans or unreliable connections.

Examples:

• Design mobile-first to ensure accessibility for all users

• Forms are usable on mobile devices

• Click zone/tap targets are sufficiently sized for mobile interaction

For instance: Ensure that all critical functionality works flawlessly on mobile devices, minimize data usage, and provide offline options for downloading important forms or information.

6. Design for accessibility and inclusion

Legal aid users represent diverse populations with varying abilities, languages, and technical skills.

Examples:

• Meet WCAG accessibility standards across all content

• Provide content in multiple languages reflecting community needs

• Links use descriptive text instead of generic "click here" phrases

For instance: Implement accessibility testing to make sure your site supports users with different needs and technical abilities and provide alternative contact methods for those who struggle with digital interfaces.

7. Build trust through transparency

Users in vulnerable positions need reassurance about privacy, security, and what will happen with their information.

Examples:

• Clearly explain how user information will be used

• Use plain language for privacy policies and consent forms

• Set clear expectations about next steps after information submission

For instance: Develop a layered approach to privacy and data usage explanations, with brief, plain-language summaries available at decision points, followed by more detailed explanations for those who want them, all written without legal jargon.

8. Reduce emotional burden

Interacting with legal systems is inherently stressful; your interface should mitigate rather than amplify that stress.

Examples:

• Language acknowledges user challenges while maintaining dignity

• Design compassionate, clear, and helpful error messages

• Minimize repetitive information entry

For instance: Use supportive, non-judgmental language throughout, especially in error messages or when users need to provide sensitive information about difficult situations.

Using the Heuristics 

These heuristics can be used in multiple ways, from lightweight application in everyday work to comprehensive evaluations:

For a comprehensive evaluation

The most effective way to use these heuristics is through scenario-based evaluation:

1. Create representative scenarios: Develop realistic scenarios that reflect your users' situations (e.g., "Maria is facing eviction next week and need immediate legal help. She’s on a mobile phone, in a loud room on a break from her job as a bartender.") Try to define a set of scenarios that considers a cross section of different legal areas, mobile vs. desktop, and other things that affect the user’s experience. For the ILAO project, we used 20 scenarios to evaluate the Get Legal Help flows specifically.

2. Evaluate each pathway: Step through each scenario considering the eight heuristic categories.

3. Document issues: Record where the experience fails to meet the heuristic standards.

4. Prioritize improvements: Focus on addressing critical barriers first.

This task-based approach ensures you're evaluating your website from your users' perspective rather than simply checking boxes.

For quicker checks

Even without conducting a full evaluation, legal aid organizations can apply these specialized heuristics in several ways:

• Select just 2-3 critical pathways that users commonly need to complete (e.g., checking their eligibility for housing assistance, finding a lawyer for their domestic violence issues)

• Apply these heuristics during design phases of new features or websites

• Train staff to recognize these principles in their everyday content creation

• Use the heuristics as a checklist when reviewing new content

Even small, targeted improvements guided by the right heuristics can dramatically increase access to vital legal services.

Get the complete framework

Our Legal Aid Website Heuristics Framework includes all eight categories and over 70 specific evaluation criteria, developed specifically for legal services websites. Use it to conduct your own evaluation and significantly improve how effectively your website serves people in need of legal assistance.