In early 2013 the Community Legal Education Program (CLE) at Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) planned a project to develop an interactive mobile phone application, offering targeted, relevant and free legal information to young people on legal issues that affected them.

It came at a time when mobile technology and mobile audiences were rapidly expanding and there was much anticipation about the potential of these platforms. Traditional pre-digital services could now be delivered right into people’s pockets, onto their smart-phones. A seemingly natural fit was legal information via apps. A seemingly obvious target market was young people, the usual early adopters of technology.

The app project complemented and extend existing CLE projects for young people and was one component in a suite of tools that VLA provides to educate young people about sexting, cyberbullying and age of consent. The app was seen as a new way to convey much needed information in a popular format that the audience uses and understands.

The project was supported by research, anecdotal evidence and technology reports about smart-phone usage. Most of the 60 submissions to the Victorian Law Reform Committee inquiry into sexting identified the need for more targeted, effective educational strategies about sexting, and the related issues of cyberbullying and consent. This came at time when the legal assistance sector was encouraging innovation and the CLE program was reducing the number of print-based educational products and looking to diversify formats by increasing the number of digital products available.

Below the belt was launched in November 2013 but within six months the install rates were low and the uninstall rates were high. After evaluating the take-up of the app, CLE decided to formally discontinue the app in November 2015. While this outcome was disappointing, and many stakeholders were surprised, the process of producing the app was instructive for the CLE program.

The urge to create apps, and use new technologies in education, remains strong. While this is valid, this case study documents key learnings from the Below the belt project which will assist agencies considering developing technological solutions to legal problems.