Not just key numbers and keywords anymore: How user interface design affects legal research

Law Library Journal

Volumn 101, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 7-30

  Jones, Julie M ^a  

^a Cornell University Law Library ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62249083936     PISSN: 00239283     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. LAWRENCE LESSIG, CODE: VERSION 2.0, at 24 (2006).
2. See AM. BAR ASS'N SECTION OF LEGAL EDUC. & ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR, LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-AN EDUCATIONAL CONTINUUM: REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON LAW SCHOOLS AND THE PROFESSION: NARROWING THE GAP (1992) ("MacCrate Report"); ROY STUCKEY ET AL., BEST PRACTICES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION (2007);
3. WILLIAM M. SULLIVAN ET AL., EDUCATING LAWYERS (2007);
4. Gene Koo, New Skills, New Learning: Legal Education and the Promise of Technology (Berkman Center for Internet & Society Research Pub'n No. 2007-4, 2007), available at http://ssrn.com/ abstract=976646.
5. See, e.g., Jay Shuck, When Associates Come in Green, LAW LIBRARIANS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM, Mar./Apr. 2007, at 7 ("'We have had some horrendous bills because new associates were just looking around without direction,' observes one senior attorney."); Tom Gaylord, 2007 Librarian Survey, slides 9, 11, 27 (PowerPoint presentation prepared for the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law, May 18, 2007), available at http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/future/handouts/gaylord%20- %20powerpoint.pdf (librarians surveyed reported that more than 70% of new attorneys are unable to research effectively and efficiently prior to any in-house training, that almost 90% are unable to define or narrow issues with secondary sources, and they identify trends in the diminution of new attorneys' ability to use tools such as indexes and digests and an "[e]ver-increasing reliance on electronic over print resources"); Sanford N. Greenberg, Attorney Survey 2007, slide 47 (PowerPoint presentation prepared for the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law, May 18,2007), available at http://www.kentlaw .edu/academics/lrw/future/ handouts/greenberg%20-%20powerpoint.pdf ("We frequently have to write off fee-based research costs because new lawyers don't know how to use it efficiently").
6. See also Sanford N. Greenberg, Legal Research Training: Preparing Students for a Rapidly Changing Research Environment, 13 J. LEGAL WRITING INST. 241 (2007).
7. Kathryn Hensiak et al., Abstract, Assessing Information Literacy Among First-Year Law Students: A Survey to Measure Research Experiences and Perceptions, 96 LAW LIBR. J. 867, 867, 2004 LAW LIBR. J. 54, ¶3 ("At the commencement of law study, these incoming law students face not simply the challenge of using legal research tools for the first time, but that of using any research tool."); Ian Gallacher, "Who are Those Guys?": The Results of a Survey Studying the Information Literacy of Incoming Law Students (July 31, 2007), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1004088 (law students overestimate their general research skills, and their legal information literacy skills are inadequate).
8. See, e.g., Bob Berring, Ring Dang Doo, 1 GREEN BAG 2d 3 (1997);
9. Mark J. McCabe, Merging West and Thomson: Pro- or Anti-Competitive?, 97 LAW LIBR. J. 423, 2005 LAW LIBR. J. 25; Symposium of Law Publishers, LEGAL REFERENCE SERVICES Q., 1991, No. 3/4, at 1-166;
10. Susan M. Yoder, The Rise of the Small: The Effects of Industry Consolidation on Small Legal Publishers, LEGAL REFERENCE SERVICES Q., 1999, No. 1/2, at 59.
11. See, e.g., Carol M. Bast & Ransford C. Pyle, Legal Research in the Computer Age: A Paradigm Shift?, 93 LAW LIBR. J. 285, 2001 LAW LIBR. J. 13; Barbara Bintliff, From Creativity to Computerese: Thinking Like a Lawyer in the Computer Age, 88 LAW LIBR. J. 338 (1996);
12. David C. Blair & M.E. Maron, An Evaluation of Retrieval Effectiveness for a Full-Text Document-Retrieval System, 28 COMM. OF THE ACM 289 (1985);
13. Daniel P. Dabney, The Curse of Thamus: An Analysis of Full-Text Legal Document Retrieval, 78 LAW LIBR. J. 5 (1986);
14. F. Allan Hanson, From Key Numbers to Keywords: How Automation Has Transformed the Law, 94 LAW LIBR. J. 563,2002 LAW LIBR. J. 36.
15. See, e.g., Robert C. Berring, Full-Text Databases and Legal Research: Backing into the Future, 1 HIGH TECH. L.J. 27 (1986);
16. Robert C. Berring, Legal Information and the Search for Cognitive Authority, 88 CAL. L. REV. 1673 (2000);
17. Daniel Dabney, The Universe of Thinkable Thoughts: Literary Warrant and West's Key Number System, 99 LAW LIBR. J. 229,2007 LAW LIBR. J. 14; Lee F. Peoples, The Death of the Digest and the Pitfalls of Electronic Research: What is the Modern Legal Researcher to Do?, 97 LAW LIBR. J. 661,2005 LAW LIBR. J. 41.
18. Code architecture has been conceptualized in other contexts as choice architecture. See RICHARD H. THALER & CASS R. SUNSTEIN, NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS 81-100 (2008) (analyzing the ways default settings, human inertia, and choice presentation affect human behavior in various aspects of life).
19. Bast & Pyle, supra note 6, at 300-01, ¶ 57-61.
20. While many librarians and mature attorneys bemoan the lack of use of secondary sources and indexes/ digests by new attorneys, particularly in print, Westlaw and LexisNexis are moving more and more of those sources into the online environment. For this paper, I did not consider the efficiencies of print versus online research.
21. Heuristic evaluations of web sites apply recognized design principles ("heuristics") to the target web site to identify potential problems or issues with the usability of the interface.
22. Peter Pirolli & Stuart Card, Information Foraging, 106 PSYCHOL. REV. 643 (1999).
23. Id. at 643. This assumes that the information provider does not benefit from inefficiencies, as subscription database providers that charge clients based on usage do. Or, perhaps the for-profit information environment should be considered an unnatural information system. In the for-profit information environment, companies may directly benefit from the inefficient use of their products, e.g., multiple poorly formed search queries in more expensive databases.
24. Herbert Simon, Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World, in COMPUTERS, COMMUNICATIONS, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST 37,40-41 (Martin Greenberger ed., 1971).
25. This example is adapted from Pirolli & Card, supra note 12, at 645.
26. Id.
27. Id. at 647.
28. Id. at 645.
29. Id. at 646.
30. See id.
31. The concept was previously discussed as residue. Id. (citing G.W. Furnas, Effective View Navigation, 1997 CHI PROCEEDINGS OF THE HUMAN FACTORS IN COMPUTING SYSTEMS 367,371).
32. Id.
33. S. Shyam Sundar et al., News Cues: Information Scent and Cognitive Heuristics, 58 J. AM. SOC'Y FOR INFO. SCI. & TECH. 366,366 (2007).
34. Jason Withrow, Do Your Links Stink? Techniques for Good Web Information Scent, BULL. AM. SOC'Y FOR INFO. SCI. & TECH., June/July 2002, at 7,7.
35. Id. at 8.
36. Marion Walton & Vera Vukovic, Cultures, Literacy, and the Web: Dimensions of Information "Scent," INTERACTIONS, Mar./Apr. 2003, at 65,71.
37. Pirolli & Card, supra note 12, at 646-47.
38. Peter Pirolli, Rational Analyses of Information Foraging on the Web, 29 COGNITIVE SCI. 343,347 (2005).
39. Jakob Nielsen, Deceivingly Strong Information Scent Costs Sales, JAKOB NIELSEN'S ALERTBOX, Aug. 2, 2004, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040802.html.
40. See Douglass R. Cutting et al, Scatter/Gather: A Cluster-based Approach to Browsing Large Document Collections, 1992 PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTEENTH ANNUAL I NTERNATIONAL ACM SIGIR CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL 318 (discussing document clustering algorithms); Christopher Olston & Ed H. Chi, ScentTrails: Integrating Browsing and Searching on the Web, 10 ACM TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTER-HUM. INTERACTION 177 (2003) (the ScentTrails algorithm attempts to bring together the strengths of searching and browsing in a single user interface).
41. See Olston & Chi, supra note 30, at 178.
42. Cutting et al., supra note 30, at 319.
43. Olston & Chi, supra note 30, at 178.
44. See id.
45. See id.
46. Id.
47. Cutting et al., supra note 30, at 319.
48. Exact information cannot be given as to the price of any particular database as vendor contracts vary. However, as a general matter, searching large databases is more expensive than searching small databases, and browsing is less expensive than searching. According to 2006 information sheets (on file with author), Westlaw's ALLCASES database costs $159 to search compared to $52 for a single state case database. Similarly, TP-ALL (Texts and Periodicals) is priced at $145 per search. Westlaw and LexisNexis both provide tables of contents for many publications that are arranged by subject, i.e., statutes, encyclopedias, and treatises. Browsing tables of contents and indexes is free on both Westlaw and LexisNexis to users with transactional accounts. Linking within these finding aids incurs a small "find fee" of $6 for most primary law, law review articles, and news documents. The find fee for most secondary law is $12 (Westlaw) or $15 (LexisNexis). While Westlaw and LexisNexis pay no royalties to courts for use of their judicial decisions, the same cannot be said regarding authors who license their publications for online use.
49. The eye-tracking movement dates back to 1879 when researchers first considered how the human eye moved across a page of text or printed picture. See Keith Rayner, Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing: 20 Years of Research, 124 PSYCHOL. BULL. 372, 372 (1998);
50. see also Robert J.K. Jacob & Keith S. Karn, Eye Tracking in Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Research: Ready to Deliver the Promises, in THE MIND'S EYE: COGNITIVE AND APPLIED ASPECTS OF EYE MOVEMENT RESEARCH 573,574 (J. Hyönä et al. eds., 2003). Eye tracking is currently used to determine where people look when they conduct computer searches and browse web sites. See, e.g., Joseph H. Goldberg et al., Eye Tracking in Web Search Tasks: Design Implications, 2002 SYMPOSIUM ON EYE TRACKING RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS 51; Laura Granka et al., Location Location Location: Viewing Patterns on WWW Pages, 2006 SYMPOSIUM ON EYE TRACKING RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS 43.
51. Eyetools, Eyetools, Enquire, and Did-it Uncover Search's Golden Triangle, http://www .eyetools.com/inpage/research-google-eyetracking-heatmap.htm (last visited Oct. 2, 2008).
52. Id.
53. U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES & U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN & USABILITY GUIDELINES 47 (2006), available at http://usability.gov/pdfs/ guidelines-book.pdf [hereinafter RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN] ("All critical content and navigation options should be toward the top of the page."); Granka et al., supra note 39, at 43 ("[T]he top left, mid-left and center were the top three regions where users first fixated.").
54. See also Will Schroeder, Testing Web Sites with Eye-Tracking, USER INTERFACE ENGINEERING, Sept. 1,1998, http://www.uie.com/ articles/eye-tracking/share (users typically look center, left, then right).
55. See, e.g., Moira Burke et al., High-Cost Banner Blindness: Ads Increase Perceived Workload, Hinder Visual Search, and Are Forgotten, 12 ACM TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTER-HUM. INTERACTION 423,423 (2005) ("people rarely look directly at banners"); Magnus Pagendarm & Heike Schaumburg, Why Are Users Banner-Blind? The Impact of Navigation Style on the Perception of Web Banners, 2 J. DIGITAL INFO. (2001), http://journals.tdl. org/jodi/article/view/jodi-37/38 (goal-directed researchers more banner-blind than aimless browsers).
56. See, e.g., Goldberg et al., supra note 39, at 51 (emphasizing need for critical site navigation to be placed at left and top of screen); Steve Outing & Laura Ruel, The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through their Eyes, http://poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/ main.htm (last visited Oct. 2,2008) (on news sites, users typically fixated first in upper left, then left to right and down).
57. See also note 43.
58. Jakob Nielsen, F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content, JAKOB NIELSEN'S ALERTBOX, Apr. 17, 2006, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading-pattern.html (using three different types of web pages (Internet search results, product page, and organization home page), users typically scanned left to right across top, down the left a little and across the middle a shorter distance than across top, then down the left side).
59. Eyetools, supra note 40 (viewing search results, users' eye scans form a triangle focused at top left, across to right, and down the left side of the screen).
60. Scan paths are the routes the eyes take when considering a page as a whole. See Rayner, supra note 39, at 399 (citing D. Noton & L.W. Stark, Scanpaths in Eye Movements During Pattern Perception, 171 SCIENCE 308 (1971)). On regularly visited web sites, the eye may form habitual scan paths. See Sheree Josephson & Michael E. Holmes, Visual Attention to Repeated Internet Images: Testing the Scanpath Theory on the World Wide Web, 2002 SYMPOSIUM ON EYE TRACKING RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS 43, 48 ("eye movements may follow ⋯ habitually preferred path[s]," though acknowledging that further research is needed); Yoshiko Habuchi et al., The Influence of Web Browsing Experience on Web-Viewing Behavior, 2006 SYMPOSIUM ON EYE TRACKING RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS 47 ("[R]esults suggest that prior Web-browsing experiences form an individual's efficient tracking method or mental model of how to view a Web site to get information."); Brian D. Ehret, Learning Where to Look: Location Learning in Graphical User Interfaces, 2002 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SIGCHI CONFERENCE ON HUMAN FACTORS IN COMPUTING SYSTEMS 211, 218 (people learn link locations in a graphical user interface "and can use this location knowledge to improve task performance").
61. The human eye moves incredibly quickly. These movements, or saccades, sometimes approach velocities of 500 degrees per second. No information is processed by the mind during sac-cades. Rayner, supra note 39, at 373.
62. When the eye rests and focuses on an item, or fixates, information acquisition and processing occur. Fixations typically last at least 200-300 milliseconds. Id at 373, 378.
63. Outing & Ruel, supra note 44.
64. See Granka et al., supra note 39, at 43; Schroeder, supra note 42; Eyetools, supra note 40, Nielsen, supra note 45; RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 47 (although right bar navigation has been effective in some tests).
65. RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 66 (some users consider the bottom of a screen the end of a web page); Outing & Ruel, supra note 44.
66. Outing & Ruel, supra note 44.
67. Walton & Vukovic, supra note 26, at 67 (novice Internet users do not know that scrolling is possible or that information may exist beyond the screen viewed).
68. See also Schroeder, supra note 42 (to users, the "fold" is actually about two-thirds down the page, not at the very bottom).
69. RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 53.
70. Schroeder, supra note 42.
71. JAKOB NIELSEN & MARIE TAHIR, HOMEPAGE USABILITY: 50 WEB SITES DECONSTRUCTED 19 (2002) ("users [should] be able to find the appropriate navigation area effortlessly, differentiate between the choices, and have a good sense of what lies beneath the links."); RESEARCH- BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 58.
72. NIELSEN & TAHIR, supra note 57, at 43 (left bar navigation and tabs favored).
73. RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 64,86.
74. Id.; NIELSEN & TAHIR, supra note 57, at 19.
75. NIELSEN & TAHIR, supra note 57, at 19 ("users often ignore anything within or above a rectangular shape at the top of the screen," also known as banner blindness).
76. Jakob Nielsen, How Users Read on the Web, JAKOB NIELSEN'S ALERTBOX, Oct. 1, 1997, http:// www.useit.com/ alertbox/9710a.html (79% of those tested scanned, while 16% read). In determining where to look next, the eye uses what is called parafoveal vision, which includes five degrees of viewing area where no reading or comprehension occurs, but the eye determines where to proceed next and whether nearby words can be skipped. Many words are skipped using parafoveal vision analysis. Two-to three-letter words are fixated only 25% of the time, whereas eight- or more-letter words are fixated 100% of the time. Rayner, supra note 40, at 375. With lawyers conducting much of their research online, one wonders what effect this fact alone has on legal research skills, let alone jurisprudence.
77. See also Debra Moss Curtis & Judith R. Karp, In a Case, On the Screen, Do They Remember What They've Seen? Critical Electronic Reading in the Law Classroom, 30 HAMLINE L. REV. 247 (2007).
78. RESEARCH-BASED WEB DESIGN, supra note 42, at 114.
79. Id. at at 115 (horizontal lists take 20% longer to scan than vertical lists).
80. Id. at 49,112-13,117.
81. Id. at 115; NIELSEN & TAHIR, supra note 57, at 19.
82. Outing & Ruel, supra note 44 (users look only at left third of news blurb, for less than one second).
83. See NIELSEN & TAHIR, supra note 57, at 19 (discussing need for clearly scented links).
84. Graphic elements may be loosely defined as non-content design features. On Westlaw and LexisNexis, search boxes are the most frequently encountered graphic elements.
85. See, e.g., Granka et al., supra note 40, at 43.
86. Id.; Outing & Ruel, supra note 44 (particularly on newspaper pages).
87. Outing & Ruel, supra note 44.
88. Walton & Vukovic, supra note 26, at 70-71. This article focuses on the U.S. environment, but trained attorneys in other countries may also encounter problems in navigating Westlaw and LexisNexis, which have their digital roots firmly planted in the United States, simply based on differences in cultural norms and mores.
89. See also Bing Pan et al., The Determinants of Web Page Viewing Behavior: An Eye-Tracking Study, 2004 SYMPOSIUM ON EYE TRACKING RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS 147 (gender may affect how users interact with web sites).
90. See, e.g., Patrick Meyer, 2007 Legal Research E-Survey, slide 10 (PowerPoint presentation prepared for the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law, May 18, 2007), available at http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/future/handouts/meyer%20 powerpoint.pdf (law firms ranked research in secondary sources second in importance behind only cases/digests); LexisNexis, Workplace Productivity Survey, slide 43 (Feb. 20, 2008), available at http://www.lexisnexis.com/literature/pdfs/LexisNexis- Workplace-Productivity-Survey-2-20-08 .pdf (more than 75% of legal professionals surveyed reported that tools that provide analysis and expertise in addition to data are somewhat important or very important).
91. See, e.g., AMY E. SLOAN, BASIC LEGAL RESEARCH: TOOLS AND STRATEGIES 333-43 (3d ed. 2006); J.D.S. Armstrong & Christopher A. Knott, Where the Law Is: An Introduction to Advanced Legal Research 226-35 (2d ed. 2004); Harvard Law School Library, Research Methodology, http:// www.law.harvard.edu/library/services/research/guides/united-states/basics/ research-method.php (last visited Oct. 2, 2008); Georgetown Law Library, Secondary Sources Research Guide, http://www .ll.georgetown.edu/guides/ secondary.cfm (last visited Oct. 2,2008); Georgetown Law Library, Finding Statutes, http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/statutes.cfm (last visited Oct. 2, 2008); Cornell Law Library, Basics of Legal Research, http://library.lawschool. cornell.edu/WhatWeDo/ResearchGuides/ Basicsxfm (last visited Oct. 2,2008).
92. "The ratio of ⋯ screens visited to minimum number required to complete a task is a ⋯ measure of task difficulty in eye tracking studies." Goldberg et al., supra note 39, at 57;
93. see also Pirolli, supra note 28, at 348 ("Search cost refers to the number of pages a user must visit before arriving at the desired page.")- In Westlaw and LexisNexis, each click takes the user to a new screen. Similarly, scrolling brings a new area of screen into view. Thus clicks and scrolls combined should act as a suitable proxy for difficulty, i.e., cost.
94. Some people use scroll-wheels, while others may need to click multiple times on the scrollbar. In individual situations, the number of "clicks" will vary depending on a user's computer hardware and settings.
95. In the course of my research, Westlaw's user interface changed frequently. Notably, Westlaw has implemented a number of suggestions that I made when presenting this topic at the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference at Chicago-Kent in May 2007.
96. See Julie Jones, Critically Assessing Subscription Web Design: Teaching Students How Website Design Affects Search Results and Research Costs (PowerPoint presentation prepared for the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law, May 18, 2007), available at www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/future/ handouts/ Julie%20Jones%20Critical%20Web%20Design.pdf. However, it was too difficult to re-edit continually to keep abreast of their re-coding. To acknowledge this, I make note of recent alterations in footnotes, recognizing at the same time that the subject of my analysis is a moving target, and readers may encounter a different interface than that described here. Additionally, the changes can be seen as illustrating that the companies can and do change their code architecture. More minor changes have been made to LexisNexis; these too are noted in footnotes.
97. See supra note 3.
98. Westlaw recently added customizable features that allow users to add databases to this and other tabs.
99. Recently, Westlaw added links to the table of contents for all state statutes in this list. This is an improvement, though indexes are a more useful finding aid for statutes.
100. With recent updates to Westlaw, the table of contents is accessed with two clicks. A savvy user might find the index with three clicks.
101. Westlaw recently added the option to search state and federal cases for each individual state.
102. With the new updates, the goal is reached in one click.
103. When this topic was presented at the Back to the Future of Legal Research Conference, see supra note 78, several audience members who teach legal research reported students who demonstrated this exact behavior and conclusion.
104. Individual jurisdictional tabs are now highly customizable, but perhaps not highly intuitive.
105. I frequently advise my students to click on Directory. The inevitable response is "Where?"
106. Possible routes include:
107. Directory > US state statutes > statutes folder/individual states > Alabama statutes (four clicks)
108. Directory > US state materials > Statutes & Legislative Services > Statutes annotated > Alabama (five clicks)
109. Directory > US state materials > other US states > Alabama > Statutes and Leg Materials > Alabama Statutes (six clicks)
110. As has been noted, Westlaw is making additions to tabbed access that help novice users identify alternate methods of information seeking within certain databases.
111. Available routes potentially include:
112. Directory > U.S. State Materials > Case Law > Combined State and Federal Cases by State > Alabama (five clicks)
113. Directory > Cases > Combined State and Federal Cases by State > Alabama (four clicks)
114. Two routes which, based on information scent, skilled users would likely travel, are:
115. Directory > Treatises, CLEs, Practice Guides > [scroll] > Texts & Treatises in TEXTS > TP-ALL > Databases beginning with A > [scroll] > Alabama Evidence (seven clicks)
116. Directory > U.S. State Materials > Other U.S. States > Alabama > [scroll] > Forms, Treatises, CLEs, and Other Practice Materials > Alabama Evidence (seven clicks)
117. LexisNexis has since changed this feature, simply returning a list of results containing the searched-for terms, many times in questionable order of relevance.
118. I once witnessed a LexisNexis representative attempt to locate a particular database via the Legal Tab. The desired source resided below the fold and it took the rep a few tries, navigating to multiple pages, and considerable searching to locate the source because, even to an expert searcher, it wasn't obvious that scrolling was needed.
119. [scroll] > States Legal U.S. > Alabama > Code of Alabama or Alabama Constitution, Court Rules & ALS, Combined (four clicks)
120. LexisNexis recently added fifty state surveys to its service, but these are not made available from this page as they are on Westlaw's comparable page.
121. These include:
122. Cases U.S. > All Courts by State > Alabama Federal & State Cases, Combined (three clicks)
123. [scroll] > States Legal U.S. > Alabama > Alabama Federal & State Cases, Combined (four clicks)
124. This has changed with LexisNexis's new "Find A Source" functionality-the correct database appears first on the list when "state federal alabama cases" is entered.
125. Routes to the desired treatise include:
126. [scroll] > Secondary Legal > Matthew Bender > By Jurisdiction > Alabama > Alabama Civil Procedure (six clicks)
127. [scroll] > Matthew Bender > By Jurisdiction > Alabama > Alabama Civil Procedure (five clicks)
128. Area of Law by Topic > Litigation Practice & Procedure > [scroll] > By State > Alabama > Alabama Civil Procedure (six clicks)
129. The author missed the link during her first and second looks at the page.
130. Though the wisdom of making design choices for such sophisticated systems based on the desires of the newest users with the least amount of training might be questionable.
131. Westlaw's most recent interface updates indicate that they are listening to client concerns. They have implemented customizable tabs, allowing users to rename and add groupings and databases to their specifications. While the use of indexes and tables of contents is available from these tabs, these features are still not visually optimized, resulting in higher access costs than those for searching.
132. See, e.g., AltLaw, www.altlaw.org (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); Public Library of Law (PLoL), www.plol.org (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); Justia, www.justia.com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); PreCYdent, www.precydent.com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); Legal Information Institute (LII), www .law.cornell.edu (last visited Oct.13,2008).
133. See, e.g., Cornell Law Library, Legal Research Engine, http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeDo/ResearchGuides/ Legal-Research-Engine.cfm (last visited Oct 13,2008); LLRX, www .llrx.com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008).
134. See, e.g., Bloomberg Law, http://about.bloomberg.com/professional/ blaw.html (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); FastCase, www.fastcase.com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); LoisLaw, www.loislaw .com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008); VersusLaw, www.versuslaw.com (last visited Oct. 13, 2008).