Modernising the World's Oldest Land Register

Scotland's land register is one of the oldest in the world, with records stretching back to 1617. Registers of Scotland is the public body responsible for maintaining it today – and ScotLIS is their flagship digital search and eCommerce platform, giving anyone in Scotland the ability to find and acquire the title report for any registered property in the country.

The challenge

Across two separate contracts with RoS, I led the UX research and interaction design for ScotLIS. The central challenge was recognising and designing for two fundamentally different user groups with different needs, contexts and levels of expertise.

Conveyancing professionals

For legal professionals, speed and accuracy were everything. They needed to find precise property information quickly, relay it to clients and keep transactions moving. To understand their world properly, I travelled across Scotland conducting contextual observation sessions, one-to-one interviews and usability testing with conveyancers in their own working environments.

The general public

As a public body, RoS had a responsibility to make land and property information accessible to everyone — not just professionals. I worked with stakeholders to design and run a wide-ranging public research programme, taking the work out into the field through pop-up research sessions at DIY and trade shows, public libraries and agricultural fairs across Scotland.

The outcome

ScotLIS is now the de facto tool for property and legal professionals across Scotland. In 2020, the product won the Legal Technology Award at the Scottish Legal Awards – recognition of what a sustained, research-led approach to a complex public sector product can achieve.