Blend redesigned the SD UJS site for clarity, accessibility, and ease of use, with Umbraco CMS, better content tools, and improved document handling.
If you have ever come into contact with the courts, you are probably familiar with a state judicial site. They’re big, chock full of forms and guides, and serve as a centralized source of information for every possible court audience: judges, attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants. Which means when it comes time for a new site, the work can be complicated and work-intensive.
This is the world that the South Dakota Unified Judicial System (SD UJS) was living in, and it’s within this world that Blend was asked to help make a bit of sense.
Given the stressful nature of navigating the judicial system, site design and organization was focused on providing easy access to important content. Design leaned toward calm and simple, helping position the SD UJS not as a roadblock to overcome but instead as a guide and tool. And, because SD UJS provides a public service, accessibility and performance sat at the forefront — everything from keyboard and low-data navigability to contrast for color blindness were designed to WCAG AA 2.2 standards.