Attorneys Interacting with Legal Information Systems: Tools for Mental Model Building and Task Integration

This paper reports (1) on the results of a user study and (2) search-history-based user interface tools developed based on the results of the study. The research described is part of a dissertation (Komlodi 2002) that examined the use of search histories in legal information seeking and derived interface design recommendations for information storage and retrieval systems. The study examined legal information seekers' use of their memory and externally recorded search histories in searching for and using information through qualitative research methods. The data collected was analyzed to identify potential task areas where search histories can support information seeking and use. The results show that many information-seeking tasks can take advantage of automatically and manually recorded history information, including mental model building of a topical area, the integration of searching for and using information, and integrating these into larger tasks contexts, which are reported in this paper. These findings encouraged the design of user interface tools building on search history information: direct search history displays, history-enabled scratchpad facilities, and organized results collection tools.