Update on our interactive PLEI website project
We’re getting closer to launching our PLEI (Public Legal Education and Information) website—an interactive legal resource for Albertans! During this first phase of the project, the ALIS PLEI website will focus on information about family law—and gradually grow to include information on other areas of law. This initial focus on family law is based on the feedback we received during our consultation with PLEI service providers in Alberta as well as other frontline community organizations that do similar work. There is much excitement about the project and groups we’ve talked to have already started to identify areas they’d like us to address next.
We’ve been working diligently behind the scene to meet each deadline and milestone so that we can move this project from an idea that was once talked about in meetings and boardrooms to a useful tool Albertans can have at their fingertips.
What we’ve done so far
Defining ‘Family Law’
Many people think of family law as simply marriage breakdown. While that is often what it means in the legal field, we’ve created a definition that includes what most everyday Albertans might consider family-related law. This includes laws about creating different familial relationships and issues that affect familial responsibilities throughout life.
Encouraging community involvement
In a previous blog post, we talked about the collaborative support we’ve been receiving from PLEI service providers across Alberta and other community organizations. We’re continuing this effort, and value any opportunity to work together with different communities throughout the province.
Gathering content
As soon as we knew the area we were tackling first—family law—we started gathering legal information and resources from different organizations throughout Alberta (and, where appropriate, Canada) that provide PLEI services as their core business or as part of their services. The website will point Albertans to these existing, third-party legal resources that will help them in their legal journey.
Where we're at
The ALIS team is working with an Edmonton-based web development company to build the website. We’re in the ‘prototype’ stage right now and the website looks a bit awkward. It’s filled with dummy text and it’s in black and white. This is perfectly normal when developing a website. The focus in this stage is to zero in on the design and functionality—how the website looks, operates and reacts to users. Once we work out the kinks in the foundation, we’ll begin to add colours and real text to make the whole thing come to life.
Just like we’ve been doing since we started this project, we’re still collaborating with organizations that help Albertans looking for public legal information daily. We plan to contact some of them to participate in our User Acceptance Testing (UAT), which will take place before and after we launch the website.
Key features
How to find legal resources on the site
The website offers three ways that help Albertans navigate to the correct legal information they need.
- Guided Pathway – An interactive, step-by-step approach that directs Albertans to the appropriate legal resource based on their answers to a series of questions.
- Search Tool – A user can type any word that’s associated with the information they’re looking for into the Search area such as divorce, child support or family violence.
- Family Law categories – You can browse the website to find legal information by selecting a specific category. As you go through the steps by further selecting subcategories, you will be pointed to a page that has resources that are specific to your query.
Emergency exit
We’ve added a feature that helps users to quickly leave the website if they feel they can no longer browse privately or safely.
Email/share your results
We’re also making it possible for users to email or share their results—the questions, answers and resources that are generated when they use the Guided Pathway. If they had not finished the Guided Pathway when they emailed it to themselves, they can pick up where they left off by clicking on a link in the email.
Naming our PLEI website
We’re working with a local marketing and advertising agency as well as our Board of Directors to finalize a name and other branding elements for the website. Stay tuned for the announcement via our social media channels or RSS for our blog.
Launch date
We plan to launch the website in early 2015.
What's next
In the coming months, we’ll:
- refine all the content we’ve gathered so far and start putting it on the website,
- create a name and brand identity for the website, and
- conduct a preliminary UAT.
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Disclaimer
Alberta Legal Information Society does not provide legal advice. If you need legal advice, please contact a lawyer or a community organization that provides that service.
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