SCOTUS Website Re-Designed

The Supreme Court of the United States has launched a new website. According to their What’s New page:

Welcome to the Supreme Court’s new Website, which not only has a new look, but also incorporates new features, including:

• recent Court decisions accessible from the homepage
• docket files dating back to 2000
• an interactive Court calendar
• a new case citation finder
• enhanced search and navigation capabilities

Additonal features and enhancements will be added over time, so watch this space for announcements.

The previous design had been criticized for being out of date with regard to look and content, and was therefore said to go against the emerging principle of open government. Last year the Sunlight Foundation had put together a proposed mock-up of the site, and included before-and-after screen shots in their blog post Redesigning the Government: the U.S. Supreme Court (June 2, 2009). While the new site is an improvement over the previous site, the Sunlight Foundation’s mock-up looks more current and possibly more useful. It is too bad they didn’t incorporate more of Sunlight Foundation’s thinking.