Central to LawHelpMN.org, Minnesota’s award-winning legal information and referral website, is its Self-Help Library. With the help of legal services attorneys and professional translators, Legal Services State Support curates and maintains a robust collection of fact sheets on a wide range of civil legal topics. Though accessed by thousands of visitors each year, little was known about the effectiveness of these resources in helping self-represented litigants (SRLs) understand their legal issue or problem. As part of a recently concluded Technology Initiative Grant (TIG), State Support teamed up with Central Minnesota Legal Services (CMLS) to create 15 videos and 30 knowledge tests (quizzes) to gauge SRL understanding of the legal issues presented in a selection of fact sheets. “Can My Landlord Enter My Home? A Tenant’s Right to Privacy” offers an example of a video and a quiz utilized to measure the helpfulness of the resource.
The TIG project included four objectives: 1) Create quizzes to integrate within fact sheets; 2) Create short, animated videos to integrate within fact sheets; 3) Explore real-time use of knowledge test answers to guide users to other resources and referrals; and 4) Revise fact sheets based on quiz results to improve understanding and effectiveness.
Quizzes were paired with short videos that explained the legal issue through animation. State Support saw high engagement with the quizzes and they appeared to help SRLs better understand the legal concepts presented. The quizzes have provided staff with new insights about what should be highlighted and expanded upon when revising fact sheet content. Video views were quite low and there was no preference for animated versus narrated video types.
Having a different perspective on LawHelpMN’s content, as well as data about how visitors are engaging with it, was both eye-opening and instructive. State Support staff found the initiative to be a useful exercise for taking a fresh look at the kinds of questions SRLs might have and how we can best answer them.