The Finnish Law Legislative Drafting Process Guide

The way how laws and legislation are being made is changing. In order to comply with the increased requirements for transparency, the Finnish Ministry of Justice set out to make the actual process of how laws are being drafted more transparent and understandable. The rows in a spreadsheet are turned into a beautiful interactive workflow that is easy to use, understandable and usable on any device with a browser and an internet connection.

In the visual presentation the law making process may be examined from the general to the specific, and the process can be followed forwards or backwards. Naturally whole service is made responsive as well and complies with accessibility standards set by EU law.

Legislative Drafting Process Guide is being used by the ministries  and the parliament in their daily work, by professionals dealing with law in their work and also by the general public interested in how Finnish laws are made.

Since its release, The Legislative Drafting Process Guide has become an integral part of the national law making process. The service has been received well, and is being used in training ministry staff, as well as in public education and by government officials and citizens interested in lawmaking.

Our design process was very iterative. The need to have the service fully functional on mobiles, tablets, desktops and big screens dictated a very prototyping-oriented work flow. After nailing down the very first brand visuals for the service, we jumped right into designing in the browser, keeping the necessary screen sizes actively in sync. The overall visual style and language are very flat and friendly to make it possible to cater to the myriad of audiences and usage scenarios. Our client’s expertise on the actual legislation process and different end user groups around it gave us invaluable insight on the needs and expectations of the end users.