You and I both know that contracts (T&C, agreements, legal documents etc) in their traditional sense are not usable. They are drafted in a way which means understanding and use is reserved for experts or technicians in the law.
They are written by lawyers for lawyers.
But as Tessa Manuello says in her Legal Creatives Podcast, the rise of user-experience/UX means everything we do needs to be quick, effective, efficient and satisfactory. Most contracts are so complicated that users are looking for other solutions!
One of the principles of design is that ‘form always follows function‘ – for legal design this means that the form of a contract should empower your team to to set up a great* relationship to allow them to flourish.
For much legal design, great* means fair, trust-based and transparent. As Brian M Perlberg said ‘Fairer contracts are not a panacea for success, but they remove an important obstacle to build [relationships] a better way.’
Good design should and will make contracts easier to read, understand and use.
User-experience for contracts means crafting visual elements, the structure (also known as information architecture) and language to communicate more effectively.
Although we understand that [legal design] is not just about making the document more beautiful… beauty always helps in making the [users] more inclined at least to take a look and start reading the information there [Tessa Manuello]
Tessa also says that ‘legal design can make the information in your contracts simple, clear and concise while maintaining [and I would argue enhancing] legal precision.’
Contracts need to memorialise a business relatonship including the parties’ the values, the project story, and how they will work together.
What should you do?
Contract creators need to make contracts that are legible (so users can process the information) as well as readable (so users can access the information).
Source: Legal Creatives Podcast Episode 31 with Tessa Manuello. Building Better with Better Construction Contracts by Brian M. Perlberg for ConsensusDocs [no longer available online].
Related posts: the process of writing a readable contract, the art of writing a readable contract and readability and smart contracts.
