Dubai Courts — UX/UI case study (draft)
01
Introduction
Justice services people can actually navigate — in Arabic and English, on any device.
Dubai Courts handles the full judicial journey — case filing, hearings, judgments, notarisation and legal translation — for individuals, lawyers and businesses across the emirate.
The services were already online. The difficulty was legal complexity: people could not tell where their case stood, what came next, or which of the many services applied to them.
02
Project overview
Client
Dubai Courts
Scope
End-to-end UX and UI for the digital justice experience.
Platforms
Responsive web, iOS and Android
Markets
Arabic-first, with English parity
Users
Litigants, lawyers and court staff
03
Problem and solution
Problem
Legal language that assumed prior knowledge
No single place to see where a case stood
Services scattered across separate journeys
Paper-era steps carried into digital forms
Solution
Plain-language guidance written for non-lawyers
One case timeline showing status and next step
A single service hub organised by intent
Digital-first submissions with fewer fields
04
Design process
Four phases, run in the open with the courts’ legal and operations teams so that every simplification stayed within procedure.
Research
Wireframe
UI design
Testing
Week 1–2
Week 2–4
Week 4–6
Week 6–8
05
Getting to know our user
Khalid — first-time litigant
Filing a commercial claim for the first time. Comfortable with apps, unfamiliar with legal procedure, and anxious about missing a deadline.
Goal clarity
72%
Needs met
68%
Pain points
34%
“I don’t need the law explained. I need to know what I should do next.”
Interviews and service-desk analysis across litigants, lawyers and court staff.
61%
of first-time users could not say what stage their case had reached.
48%
of service-desk calls were status questions, not legal questions.
79%
expected to complete a filing without visiting a counter.
07
User insights
82%
want a single view of everything tied to their case.
66%
prefer to resolve a step online rather than in person.
46%
had abandoned a service at least once because of unclear wording.
07
Flow designed for clarity
Every path was reorganised around what a person is trying to achieve, not which department owns the service.
Enter Dubai Courts
Verify identity — UAE Pass
File a case
Choose case type
Add parties
Upload documents
Pay filing fee
Submitted
Respond
Open notice
Review claim
Draft response
Attach evidence
Filed
Pay
Select item
Confirm amount
Choose method
Receipt issued
Track
Case timeline
Hearing dates
Judgments
Certificates
08
Typography and colour
Helvetica Condensed — display
Inter — interface
IBM Plex Sans Arabic — RTL
Aa
أ ب ج
Surface
#0B0D08
Depth
#1F2A0B
Accent
#C9FF3D
Accent on light
#4A5C14
Content
#F4F4F2
09
Core features
01
Case timeline
Every filing, hearing and judgment on one line, with the next action always named.
02
Guided filing
Long legal forms broken into short steps with plain-language help at each field.
03
Unified payments
Fees, deposits and fines settled in one place with receipts kept on the case.
04
Remote hearings
Joining, documents and outcomes handled without a trip to the courthouse.
10
Project timeline
0–2 weeks
Research
Stakeholder interviews
Service audit
Journey mapping
2–5 weeks
Discovery
Information architecture
Wireframes
Design system
5–8 weeks
Validation
Prototype testing
Arabic and RTL review
Handover
11
Outcomes
Status enquiries to the service desk
down
Filings completed without a counter visit
up
Time to submit a first claim
down
Arabic and English parity across services
full
Directional — final measurement is owned by the courts’ analytics team.