Website redesign to put clients' needs first

Our new website at www.legalaid.vic.gov.au is now live, marking an exciting milestone after a comprehensive redevelopment. 

To keep up with the rapid progression of digital technology, we’ve moved to a new platform, overhauled the structure and design of the website, and updated all of our legal information to better meet the needs of help-seekers and the community. 

Associate Director, Strategic Communications, Jasmine Fiegehen said the new website is providing easier access to the legal information people need.   

‘More than two million people use our website each year, making it the front door for legal assistance and helping users solve a wide range of legal problems. 

‘The new website allows us the flexibility and capability to expand the functionality over time and launch new self-help and service delivery tools as part of our broader digital transformation journey. 

‘Our new websites will also make the wide breadth of legal information we provide to the community more accessible and easy to find. 

‘By making legal information easier to access, Victorians can begin taking steps to solve their legal problems independently, while priority clients are directed to our more intensive services like Legal Help Chat,' said Jasmine. 

Client-first approach to user testing 

The launch of the new website is the culmination of extensive user testing and consultation with our stakeholders to ensure it meets their needs. This supports the initiatives in our Client First Strategy, ensuring that products and services we develop genuinely deliver on the needs of clients and help-seekers.  

‘We’ve restructured the legal information on our site based on initial focus group testing and research. We then tested the new site structure for the ease, speed, and accuracy of finding specific information, giving us a greater understanding of how our users search, sort and find information on our website. 

‘This testing ensured that our website is data-informed and allows people to find information in a way that suits them,’ said Jasmine. 

Over 60 people tested our new Victoria Legal Aid website, including in intensive interviews with participants providing both qualitative and quantitative research results. 

Participants included current and former clients, people with past experience as offenders, and people who have previously received the support of legal representation; as well as people with experiences of domestic violence, disability and mental health issues, and people receiving social security benefits or currently unemployed. They ranged in age from 25 to 70 years old. 

Jasmine said the user testing was invaluable and provided insights into the impact of the legal system on many of our user’s lives. 

‘The detailed feedback from website users was an incredibly important part of the process and allowed us to understand how best to deliver a website that supports the critical role legal information plays in people’s lives, and their interactions with the legal system. 

‘We learned that people don’t separate their legal problems and their life events. Rather, people’s legal history is part of their life story and we need to provide legal information within the context of that narrative,’ said Jasmine. 

More information 

Learn about how our new website is improving access to justice for all Victorians