People engage with our legal system in the US to achieve some goal—usually one relating to some form of risk mitigation or conflict resolution. Because legal services involve both interactions and goal-directed behavior, one might expect the legal system to have been designed on principles of usability. Instead, the products of the legal system inflict legalese on people. Merriam-Webster.com defines legalese as the “the specialized language of the legal profession.” [1] Whatever the design principles behind this specialized language, they are definitely not principles of usability. Why are so many products of our legal system unusable?
view source
