The U.S. Courts for the Ninth Circuit is the largest of the U.S. circuit courts, covering nine states and two territories. Its public website has not been redesigned since 2005. Confusing information architecture, dense text, and a lack of content strategy and governance had made important information hard to find, especially for users bringing cases before the circuit’s Court of Appeals.

The project team was asked to completely redesign the website so it better serves the needs of its public users, particularly attorneys and people representing themselves with cases before the appellate court. Along with designing new information architecture and reusable templates based on the U.S. Web Design System, 18F was asked to establish new governance processes for the circuit so staff could produce consistent content and manage it sustainably. We conducted foundational research, crafted a strategy, built a new design system and information architecture, completed a prototype, and were coaching the circuit staff in all aspects of modern UX design and research so they could launch the new website within the year. We had just started usability testing when the work was forced to stop.