Aloysio França

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Product Discovery

B2G Online Negotiation Platform

Company

MOL - Mediação Online

About the Company

MOL is a lawtech that has been operating since 2015 with technology for online conflict resolution. It operates in the B2B2C and B2G segments.

Period

Nov/2021 to May/2022

Responsible team

Aloysio França (Product Designer / líder)
Bruno Carneiro (Product Designer Jr.)
Natália Bertão (Product Manager)

My Role

To explore the proposed problem and execute the solution, going through the stages of research, defining the strategy, ideation, and designing the application interface.

The Problem

Since the beginning of the pandemic, MOL has created a campaign called 'Justice Won't Stop' (A Justiça não vai Parar) and has provided its digital tool for online conciliation hearings to the courts of Brazil free of charge, with the aim of digitizing the conciliation process in the Brazilian courts. Due to this experience, the following pain points were identified:

Extremely high number of cases awaiting a conciliation hearing in the courts.

The courts need volunteer conciliators to conduct these hearings.

Volunteer conciliators are not always available.

Starting the discovery

Methodology: Design Thinking process with Double Diamond framework.

1. CSD Matrix

2. Value Proposition
Canvas

3. UX Research

4. Affinity Diagram

5. Proto-personas

6. Wireframing

7. Information
Architecture

8. Prototype

9. Delivery

Check the original file on Figjam by clicking here

CSD MATRIX

As a starting point, we chose to use the CSD Matrix due to its effectiveness as an alignment tool among the stakeholders involved. This approach allowed us to establish a clear understanding of the objectives and needs of the users, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

The main points highlighted were:

Certainties

The lack of manpower in conciliation hearings delays the processing of cases in the court.

It's necessary to reduce manual labor in order to have a scalable process.

Simple legal cases are stuck in the queue for hearings and could be resolved through negotiation.

Suppositions

The gain in agility in conflict resolution will be appreciated by all parties involved.

A highly innovative approach could lead to mistrust in society.

The courts isn't interested in transferring its data to another system as it would create extra work.

Doubts

Are there types of negotiations where the presence of a conciliator would be unnecessary?

In which types of cases could negotiation be asynchronous?

Are the parties satisfied with how the conciliations currently take place?

VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS

After analyzing the results of the CDS Matrix, we convened the stakeholders for a new workshop, the Value Proposition Canvas. This activity was crucial to enhance and direct our value proposition, exploring various perspectives and ensuring strategic alignment with the interests and needs of the users.

The dynamics were extremely constructive, providing numerous valuable insights on how to address the previously identified problems.

Customer Jobs

The judge aims to meet goals;
The courts desire to promote settlement practices;
The courts strive to optimize internal processes.

Pains

Delay in conciliation hearings due to the quantity of cases vs staff limitation;
The practice of conciliation hearings is a bottleneck;
Bureaucracy in the court/registry relationship.

Gains

Make self-composition scalable;
Less resource commitment;
Unique environment for bringing parties closer.

Gain Creators

100% digital agreements, without the need for scheduling by the parties;
Fewer steps to reach an agreement;
Electronic signing of the draft directly through the platform.

Pain Relievers

Asynchronous negotiation doesn't require the presence of a conciliator;
There are no limits to the number of agreements to be reached at the same time;
Single platform to manage the flow of negotiation.

Products and Services

Validações de segurança dos poderes das partes para transacionar no conflito;
Possibilidade de enriquecimento de dados;
Importação massiva de processos;

UX RESEARCH: QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS

The research script was based on all the hypotheses and questions raised during the workshops. It was necessary to deeply understand the work routine of potential users and map the relevant points.

The interview script were divided into two possible proto-personas:

1. Judges of JECs (Small claims court)
2. Public servants of courts

The interviews were divided into two rounds. In the first round, we aimed to delve into the routines and main challenges of the users. In the second round, we presented a flow of how the product could be. In total, we interviewed 10 public servants and 6 magistrates, obtaining essential information about their impressions regarding asynchronous online negotiation.

All interviews were recorded and transcribed for maximum utilization of the data used in generating insights.

Check out the script of the judges [pt]

Check out the script of the servants [pt]

PRESENTATION - AFFINITY DIAGRAM

We created an Affinity Diagram to present the research findings to the leaders and stakeholders.

The research brought positive results in relation to the raised hypotheses and demonstrated a clear interest of the courts in using an asynchronous online negotiation product. These findings provided valuable insight into potential legal market demand and support the feasibility of developing such a solution to meet the needs of the court system.

Below are some of the main points reported.

The results of the interviews provided important confirmations of our hypotheses and also highlighted some points of concern:

The situation regarding the scheduling of hearings is indeed a bottleneck

Public servants are seeking ideas to solve the issue of the lack of workforce among volunteer conciliators

Magistrates aim to streamline the processes by eliminating those that are amenable to self-composition so that they can focus on more complex cases

The transfer of data between the court system and new MOL's product may create additional work for the public servants.

DEFINITION OF PROTO-PERSONAS

The personas were built based on the conducted research, the routines of the interviewed users, their pain points, and success metrics.

WIREFRAMING

The most critical aspect of the product would be the data transfer between systems. Since the APIs of the courts are not open, integration would be unfeasible at this time.

We conducted thorough benchmarking to broaden our perspective on how the market is efficiently and easily importing databases for any user.

Some of the tools studied were:

The benchmarking with all screens and comments can be accessed at THIS LINK (opens in FigJam).

After the benchmarking, we understood that currently the best way to import a spreadsheet with low error probability is by using a "From x To" function in a form wizard.

The "From x To" function prompts the user to relate each column name in their spreadsheet with the expected name within the system.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE - USER FLOW

We designed the initial high-level flow of the product with the main steps for each user.

The points addressed are:

Data transfer from the court system to the MOL system;
Sending invitations for parties to negotiate;
Initiation of the negotiation process;
Reporting the negotiation outcome in the system;
If an agreement is reached, attaching and sending the agreement terms;
Sending consumer authentication documents;
Electronic signature by the parties;
Returning the results to the court system.

PROTOTYPE

The high-fidelity prototype built upon the legacy of an existing Design System within the company, resulting in the majority of components already being available.

Data transfer

As identified in the interviews, one of the most critical points of the journey would be the transfer of data from the court system to the MOL system. The execution was carried out through spreadsheet importation and merging of the spreadsheet columns with the expected format by the system.

First Results

The first version of the MVP was launched in March 2022 in a testing mode for the TJSP and TJMG (Courts of São Paulo and Minas Gerais). In the initial months of testing, the product achieved highly satisfactory results. There was a significant saving of time and manpower for the courts.

The efficiency indicators were generated by comparing the case resolution between the MOL tool and the traditional method of courts. The data used for comparison are from cases in the same courts, from the same market segments, and similar subjects.

Conclusion

Asynchronous online negotiation is an innovative methodology for courts, which are traditionally more familiar with conciliation hearings. However, the results of the MVP have demonstrated a significant efficiency gain, which may influence cultural changes in the Brazilian judiciary.