Improvements to Legal Aid Online driven by first round of solicitor feedback

Changes to improve the user experience of Legal aid Online have been made after feedback was received from solicitors.

The suggestions for improvements were made by LAOL users who participated in the first round of UX (User Experience) research.

We are continuing our UX testing and there are details at the end of this update for anyone interested in taking part.

Some of the improvements that we would like to bring to your attention are as follows:

Previously, if you submitted a paper account and then realised that you had, for example, entered the wrong breakdown, you were unable to correct this and enter the correct details.

Following the deployment you are now able to reset a paper account to draft. To reset the account to draft you should click on the ‘reset to draft’ icon highlighted in the screenshot below.

When you reset a paper account to draft you should ensure that you discard the paper registration document that related to the original submission. When you resubmit the paper account you should print off and attach the new paper registration document.

To remind you of this the following warning message will be displayed:

When we reject a paper account we send you a notification. This is currently a standard notification. To ensure that the rejection is brought to your attention as quickly as possible we have now changed this to a priority notification.

We have now provided a link to the ‘View Case’ direct from the accounts screens. Previously you were unable to navigate seamlessly from the ‘accounts’ screens to the ‘View Case’ if you wished to view the original application, you had to exit the account screen and re-type the LARN in the search page.

Clicking on ‘View Case’ from the account will now take you direct to the application.  To exit the ‘View Case’ and return to the account you should click on the ‘eye’ symbol shown below.

When accounts negotiations contained a large amount of text, the negotiations were being shrunk on screen and became difficult to read. This was frustrating for firms as it made responding to the negotiations increasingly difficult.

To resolve this issue we have now changed the layout of the screen by removing the work item number and increasing the space available for negotiations.

We are in a transition period of moving all remaining accounts over to the accounts re-write screens to use the online and paper options to submit any account.

When submitting a final account after the submission of an interim payment it was not clear previously from the LAOL screens if you should use the old paper synopsis or the ‘re-write’ screens to submit a final paper account.

To help firms identify if the account should be submitted using the ‘re-write’ screens we have now added the label ‘Accounts re-write’ to the view case screen. Where this is displayed you should only use the accounts online system when submitting either an online or paper account (paper process).

If the view displays “Old accounts system” you should continue using the old methods.

We still want your input and you can still help shape the future look and feel of the system. If this is something you feel you or your firm could help us with, please send your firms details to Kathleen Nolan.

Please note that webinars are available for all Legal Aid Online application and accounts products.

For further information or to arrange a webinar, please contact:
Christine Connerton, Digital Services Marketing Officer