Implement citation filter for MURs

[noahmanger]

So that users can quickly find relevant AOs and MURs, allow them to search by citation using typeahead inputs for regulations and statutes.

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🖌 Design | 🗣 Discussion

Dependency: Back-end support

Completion criteria:
Coming once designs are complete.

[nickykrause]

@dogweather:

Great questions! We actually didn't have much of a design discussion (that I recall?) about that proposed "boolean control," so I'm glad we're having it now. 😄

Some thoughts on your thoughts (pulling them over from the other thread):

Could we remove this [the control] altogether by ordering the results, showing those with all cites first? [ref. Craigslist]

One reason we didn't look into handling this as a part of the search results display is that we had (and continue to have) a lot of open questions about the complexity of that display. We are only just beginning to understand what users might need from the results themselves, for the various legal resource types (for which a lot of information could be included, but probably shouldn't be), and we're grappling with how to show the most useful things with the available space.

In addition, though, we also don't know that much about whether or not this boolean control is even needed, and how. We heard (in a handful of user interviews) that there is an interest in searching by one or multiple citations, and we suspect that the multiple-citation use case will need the flexibility to have both "and" and "or" logic, but we don't really know.

This isn't all to say that we shouldn't explore options that alter search results display (I do think that'd be interesting), but I am wondering if we could implement something a little more blunt up front and see what kinds of responses we get about the need for AND / OR controls on the filters?

That said, I like the middle-ground solution you suggested:

How about moving the If statement into the code itself, and only show the checkboxes when multiple citations have been entered. (Otherwise, this kind of forces the user to act like a computer.)

This makes a lot of sense to me and reduces the burden for the user, as you said.

Also, about this comment:

(Finally, as I understand the logic, these would be actually be radio buttons, not checkboxes. ?)

Yes, they would be mutually exclusive (so, radio buttons)

Lastly, you made a comment about the language:

I think we can simplify and disambiguate the options a bit. I also have a hunch that "include" is more colloquial in other legal search apps. (?) As in, "Include ... in the search results"

• Include cases that cite any
• Include only cases that cite all

...which you presented in contrast to the existing language:

If multiple citations are entered:
Show cases that cite any of them
Show cases that cite all of them

At first glance, I also like the word "include," but will defer to @emileighoutlaw for word expertise.

Again, Robb, I am happy to keep discussing this, if you'd like! The design that you are reacting to was a very raw "We need something like this" kind of idea that, as we can see, is benefiting from more thinking!

[dogweather]

Thanks, @nickykrause for being open to ideas, and also for the context. That really helps. I'm glad to hear we're still figuring this all out. I thought it'd help to see my context as a recent law school grad, from 2011:

Here's what the typical search UI looks like, "Westlaw":

IME most lawyers hate it and feel pretty incompetent. There's usually one person in the firm who's "good at Westlaw". There are full-on courses for how to use it (this screenshot is from one such guide - a clue that this is bad UX). And this is just one of dozens of complex screens. (Granted, this is the "Advanced Search", but "Basic Search" is very complex in other ways.)

Thompson has now produced WestlawNext which is much better, but AFAIK it's an expensive upgrade:

These apps start at hundreds of $$ per month, and I don't know if our govt users have access to them. But they did learn on these in law school.

When I made my online legal search site, oregonlaws.org, I decided to go a different route and use the Google philosophy and provide one large search box, and then just "do the right thing" with the results. I've got some validation for my approach: it's become the go-to site for Oregon lawyers, and is introduced in law school classes.

Now, FEC is serving different use cases than oregonlaws.org, but this shows my context when I think about search.

As for the particular case of a legal researcher searching for materials matching one or more citations, IME the real thing they're trying to accomplish is to find the most "on point" documents they can. And docs that reference all of the entered citations would probably be the most relevant. I'm guessing that it's as simple as that. And that and / or is a programming concept we might be able to avoid burdening users with.

But caveat, I haven't talked to any of the app's actual users, or seen what kind of research they're doing.

[nickykrause]

@dogweather:

First, thanks for offering your perspective, which seems to be highly relevant!

Second: The users of the FEC legal resources with whom I have spoken have mentioned WestLaw several times, so you are absolutely right that they do use it (and they were trained on it).

Third: About this comment -

As for the particular case of a legal researcher searching for materials matching one or more citations, IME the real thing they're trying to accomplish is to find the most "on point" documents they can. And docs that reference all of the entered citations would probably be the most relevant. I'm guessing that it's as simple as that.

Are you thinking that we could just assume And logic when users enter multiple citations, and not even offer Or capabilities, at least at first?

If so, I am happy to try that and see what we encounter in testing.

[noahmanger]

FWIW, if we have reason to believe that most users just need AND I'm game to start with that and see if we need to add the complexity of providing a choice.

[jenniferthibault]

Refining this issue down to just implementing MUR tasks, and will create a separate issue for implementing the AO citations filter.

Tony & Vraj did some speedy research and found that we don't need to upgrade elastic search in order to achieve advanced AND/OR citation functionality. In grooming today, we aligned on the idea that we'd support both initially because the additional effort is minimal, and it's functionality users are accustomed to in EQS, though testing will be necessary as soon as we can.

@nickykrause is going to upload the new designs here when ready, then we need to outline completion criteria

[nickykrause]

per Jen's comment above, here are the designs

[AmyKort]

Issue moved to 18F/fec-cms #1561 via ZenHub