Legal design thinking and legal visualization : towards an understandable tax law

Abstract

The objective of this project is to apply “legal design thinking” and legal visualization techniques in Tax legal studies to facilitate the understanding and access to Tax law and the functioning of its Institutions. Specifically, so that it is more citizen-oriented to cope with idiomatic, formative and cultural barriers. Legal Design Thinking tries to make legal information simpler and clear for the public through the design of communication techniques and visualization (i.e. produce logic diagram visualising the different institutions, their compositions, law issues to be used in administrations). In this line, the work of communication and information designers is organizing and displaying information in a way that maximises its clarity and understandability. It focuses on the needs of the users and the context in which they need to find and apply information. When the content is complex, readers need to grasp both the big picture and the details and often switch between these two views. This is where visualisation -here understood as adding graphs, icons, tables, charts and images to supplement text -enters the picture. Visualisation can help in navigating text, opening its meaning and reinforcing its message, even in the field of law. And information design is not only about visualisation: it is also about many other useful things such as language, readability, typography, layout, colour coding, and white space.