On November 7th, a team of us at Stanford Law School & d.school are hosting a day in which we work with young people in the Bay Area to imagine what more user-friendly ways to clean and seal their record might be.
We started with the open source project Expunge.io from Illinois, to see how it might be adapted to California, as well as how it could be improved to be better address young people’s needs as they deal with the criminal justice system.
Here is a gallery of our team at work.
New Expunge Guide Designs that we Created
The participant teams, and the designer/developer/lawyer coaches worked together to create three different prototypes to add to the Expunge.io model:
- A chat-based explainer of what the process and eligibility is. Rather than a long text explanation, or a series of questions presented in a questionnaire, the info would be exchanged in a Messenger interface (think your phone’s messenger, or Kik). Ideally, the messages would be displayed as if they were coming from a celebrity the young people want to engage with — like Chris Tucker.
- A visual carousel of lawyer profiles, that would let a young person immediately see what possible lawyers they might be able to connect with to help them clean their record. This would let them actually see who they might be able to talk to, read about them, others’ experiences with them. Then they could use that profile to Facetime or chat with the lawyer, before finding a time to talk to them in person.
- Other young people’s stories about their record-cleaning experience, that would tell anecdotes and specific examples of what the process means, what consequences it has for them, and how it can be done smartly.
Design Process and Review
We held a design review of the Expunge.io app, to get feedback on what should be different, what the participants like, and what other ideas they have for a Record-Cleaning triage and guide.
Here are the sketches from our designers, the post-it reviews from the youth participants from their Design Review, and any other captures from our afternoon design session.
Visuals We Created to Explain Sealing Your Juvenile Record
In the run-up to the event, Margaret created 3 legal visuals to explain what the California law is around sealing your juvenile record. These visuals were meant to help all the participants — students, designers, and developers, quickly understand what the eligibility, process, and consequences are in a visual way.
The Invitation
Are you interested in participating as a coach (on legal, design, or development skills), a supporter, who might help projects conceived during the design day can move forward, or in another capacity?
Fill out this RSVP form below.