Juror

The NSW Government’s Department of Justice orchestrates the state’s compulsory jury service. Juries are used to ensure that legal verdicts are impartial and in line with community standards of behaviour. Serving as a juror is a mandatory role, providing unique insights into the NSW court process.

Juries are used in the NSW District Court and NSW Supreme Court to determine criminal and civil matters. People aged over 18 are summoned and subsequently randomly selected to serve on a jury in a particular trial. The process of collating, storing and selecting names of all eligible jurors is a large task which occurs year-round. TOAST was engaged to assist with the ideation and design of an updated user interface and communications platform which simplifies the process on both the distribution and client end.  

The juror selection process is a key part of the Australian justice system. Every year, the names of approximately 200,000 potential jurors are randomly selected from the NSW Electoral Roll and included on the jury list. From this number, up to 150,000 people will be summoned to present to court, with a subsequent 9,000 being selected to fulfil their service on a jury panel. TOAST was tasked with renewing a user management system to reduce the bulk of content and business hours required to orchestrate the juror selection process.

Given the evidenced high amount of data being dealt with in the NSW Department of Justice, TOAST worked to strengthen the brand and streamline their processes, aiming to reduce pain points and simplify processes for both the distribution teams and summoned jurors.

TOAST designed a two-part solution with an updated User Interface Design and a Communications Suite.

Our team created the overall design for the Department of Justice’s online portal, mobile application and management system for jurors and potential jurors, known as Juror. This Jury Management System is an updated user database storing information on NSW jurors and contains algorithms that are used to randomly select the 200,000 jurors each year from the four million-strong NSW electoral roll. With its algorithm for random selection, the system dramatically simplifies the Jury summoning process and provides efficiencies throughout the entire procedure for Jurors and Government alike.

In line with this, TOAST crafted a marketing communications suite for the NSW public. Our strategy led us to develop a concept that portrayed a sense of pride and civic duty gained from participation in NSW’s Jury Service. Our Big Idea came down to the three verbs “Observe, Listen, Decide.” This slogan works hand-in-hand with the authentic imagery, showcasing real people across NSW to portray a sense of ownership, responsibility and recognition for the cause. At the 2017 Sydney Design Awards, TOAST received a Gold Award in the Government Service category for our Juror campaign on behalf of the Department of Justice.