The Web 2.0 Enabled Law Firm
[cross-posted on Information Management Now]
For the past several months, I have been diligently exploring how Web 2.0 technologies could better support the work of lawyers. I’m happy to report my findings in this discussion paper, albeit in a particular context, using a TiddlyWiki. If you are interested in what it takes to write a document like this, make sure you check the About section in the paper.
Comments and suggestions are welcome.
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March 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
Patrick:
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. My comments focus on the interface for first-time users:
I read the “Read First” page first, clicking through to the linked pages. I could not find the meat of your report this way, however. It would be helpful to have links from “Read First” to “Web 2.0″, “Business Transformation”, and “Context”. I didn’t notice these tabs right away, and I couldn’t see any obvious links to them in the first couple of document layers (i.e. “Read First” or the pages it links to).
While I realize you are trying to make this more of a hyperlinked document and not quite so flat, it might be nice to have a way to read sequentially through the document in a more traditional sense. Perhaps a table of contents with links to the pages?
The tiddly menu was surprising–I didn’t see it until much later, and couldn’t figure out where the command “close” was listed. I wonder if there is a clearer way to describe this? Perhaps a screen capture pointing the tiddly menu out to first time users? Once I knew it was there, it was a snap.
I hope you find these comments useful.
Cheers,
Connie
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Thanks Connie, very useful suggestions – thanks. I have amended the Home page / Read First and included a screenshot, etc – let me know if that works. :-)
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Web 2.0 and the Legal Profession is specifically discussed here: http://tinyurl.com/obwo9
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Hi Patrick
This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it with us. I think it’ll take me some time to digest it all. I must say that the thing that strikes me as most interesting — and a bit difficult to get my head around — is TiddlyWiki. (By the way, I really dislike the name. I guess it was named after the game tiddlywinks. But it sounds way too juvenile.)
The readme page is much better now with the screenshot.
One thing: if you happen to hit the broswer back button (or, in my case, the back button on the mouse) you get thrown out of the TiddlyWiki — I suppose because it’s a single file. This runs counter to current conventions and might cause problems for some users.
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Hmm. I now begin to see possibilities for a TiddlyWiki. I like the idea of linking to various bits of micro-content and having them zoom to the front, so to speak. I can easily see this being used to construct a guide for certain aspects of legal research or any process that can be deconstructed into steps and where each step or portion can be described in few words. I’ve made one for myself but need to live with it for a while yet before inviting anyone to take a look.
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Your students may like this one (!):
http://15black.bluedepot.com/twtests/tiddlywikise.htm
;-)
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Yeah, I think that is less confusing. It is interesting how you have authored this report on Web 2.0 using a Web 2.0 tool. The trick is in ensuring the message doesn’t get blurred by the medium.
Ah, the medium IS the message? You don’t say….