Modernizing Canadian court websites

A group has formed in order to make Canada's courts websites more efficient
A group has formed in order to make Canada's courts websites more efficient

A recently convened group is hoping to bring navigability, customization and quicker content turnarounds to Canada’s court websites. In a post on Slaw today, Patrick Cormier details the progress made by the Canadian Centre for Court Technology’s working group on modernizing the websites of the country’s courts.

A key section of the working group’s report identifies 11 key principles that should direct how court websites are designed:

  • The Right Information for Specific Audiences
  • Empowerment
  • Timeliness
  • Notification
  • Content Organization & Search
  • Security
  • Bilinguism
  • Accessibility
  • Interactivity
  • Viability
  • Simplicity

The first three of these are explained in Cormier’s post:  “The Right Information for Specific Audiences” focuses on organizing content according to category of user (journalists, lawyers, the public, etc); “Empowerment” means creating avenues for content consumers and creators to control what they see and how they see it; and “Timeliness” is about minimizing the delay between when information is ready to appear on a court website, and when it actually goes live.

The group’s full report will be unveiled at next month’s Canadian Forum on Court Technology.