Exploring Usability and Legal Practice: Insights from German Judicial Users of Digital Forensics

Abstract

Digital forensics has become an integral part of modern criminal proceedings, yet its effective integration remains challenging because of increasing data volumes, evolving technologies, and complex interactions between technical and legal stakeholders. Although prior work has focused primarily on digital forensic tools and methods, its broader procedural and organizational context has received limited attention. Building on emerging perspectives inspired by usability research and human-centered security, we conceptualize digital forensics as part of a socio-technical system within criminal proceedings. We consequently investigate this perspective through a survey of 101 practitioners from the judiciary of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, including public prosecutors, judges, and digital forensic experts. The results indicate a strong demand for improved integration of digital forensics into workflows, enhanced cross-domain communication, and a closer alignment of stakeholder expectations. They also uncover great potential for the improvement of digital forensics usability, e.g., through stronger interdisciplinary cooperation, easier and faster access to evidential data and results, or improvement of stakeholder training and education.