My Voice

DEMOCRACY ONLY WORKS WHEN EVERYONE IS VOTING

A mobile-based application designed to increase young voter turnout by providing easily digested political information all in one place.

Voter Turnout

My secondary research revealed that voter turnout is low across all elections, particularly in municipal elections. Among these elections, ages 18-29, followed by 30-44, had the highest percentage of non-voters.

Based on this research, I knew that providing information on state and local government was going to be just as important as the federal government. The high percentage of younger individuals not voting also solidified my decision to target younger voters.

Percentage of eligible voters who voted in

54.3%

2018

Midterm Elections

61.4%

2016

Presidential Election

On Average

Municipal Elections

27.0%

Market Research

Market research showed that there isn't a product that effectively provides all types of political information. As a result, potential voters would need to gather information from multiple sources which can be time-consuming and frustrating.

I conducted a hueristic evaluation of 3 competitors in my space to understand their solutions. While each competitor does a good job in providing information in certain areas, they are significantly lacking in others. I saw this as a gap in the market, and therefore a missed opportunity.

Countable

A congress centered application that provides daily notifications about federal bills, upcoming votes, discussion boards, and an easy way to contact your representative.

Rock The Vote

A non profit organization whose mission is to “engage and build the political power of young people.” Their audience, much like my own, is geared towards young people and increasing their voter turnout.

Voter Bloc

A mobile based application designed to help voters learn more about their candidates in a condensed format in an objective and unbiased matter.

Solution

A mobile app that offers easily understood political information at the federal, state, and local levels to educate younger voters about elections, congress, and representation, ultimately boosting voter turnout.

Screener Surveys

The majority of people try to keep up with the news but often decide not to vote in all elections. This made me wonder if there are barriers/ frustrations with the political information they are receiving that may be preventing them from making informed votes.

Most screeners said they would not vote because they were unfamiliar with a candidate rather than because they didn't know how to register. So maybe not knowing how to vote isn't the main pain point here?

21%

Have voted at least once in federal,state, & local elections

Keep up with politics a few times a week

66%

Use a smartphone for political in formation

78%

Will be 18-35yrs old by the next election

81%

Interviews

My screener surveys helped me find participants for my interviews. I then synthesized the interviews to discover common themes in motivations, pain points, and goals by creating an affinity map.

“My Biggest motivation for not voting, is not knowing what I am voting for.”

Interview 1: 29yrs old

“I never voted because of the lack of information, or maybe it was too much information all over the place, from too many sources, so it almost made me feel more confused.”

Interview 3: 34 yrs old

“Something that is informed, but not so dry that it’s not understandable by people our age.”

Interview 5: 24 yrs old

“I want to be part of the younger voter base that is hopefully motivated and wants to turn it around this year.”

Interview 2: 35 yrs old

“I really like getting a voter pamphlet because it gives you kind of an overview of all the issues that we are voting on.”

Interview 4: 27 yrs old

“What’s funny, the truth of it is, I think local elections matter more because it’s where I live and what I have more control over in a way but I almost don’t put any effort into it... it’s not in my face all of the time.”

Interview 6: 30 yrs old

Pain Points

Overwhelmed

There is too much information and they are left feeling confused

Discouraged

They feel like their vote does not matter

Uninformed

They are fearful of making an uninformed decision.

Confidence

Feel informed and confident in their votes

Speed

Quick/ straightforward information

Understand

Understand bills being passed in congress/ contact representatives

Proactive

Be more proactive and support issues that are important to them

Learn

To learn more about state and local government

Motivations/ Goals

Skeptical

It is hard to find unbiased, trustworthy information

Busy

They are too busy to sift through a bunch of articles

Personas

How can we help users minimize their challenges while satisfying their wants?

Using Olivia as my main persona, I dived into her behaviors which helped me create my user stories. This then helped lay the ground work for coming up with the right features for my MVP product,

MVP Features

Determining MVP features taught me a valuable lesson, you can't do it all...I had to come to terms with that helping users become more poltically engaged does not require certain features.

I initially found it challenging to slect the most important features for my product, given its numerous possibilities and substantial content. It felt like every feature was crucial, and I didn't want to leave anything out.

Role

UX Designer and Researcher

Tools

Figma, Balsamiq, Miro

Duration

6 months

Device

IOS Mobile Application

Problem

I started this project a year before the 2020 Presidential Election, knowing how critical it would be to encourage voter participation. The United States has historically experienced low voter turnout, and I wanted to find a solution that would inspire more individuals to engage in the democratic process and cast their vote.

Importance

We live in a country where eligible voters have the opportunity to directly influence the shaping of our country's future. Whether good or bad we are voting not only for us but for the collective society.

Initial Assumptions

At first, I believed that creating a mobile application that provided information solely about voting and voter registration would help increase low voter turnout. However, after conducting secondary research, this assumption was proven wrong.

So that I...

Have an incentive to stay motivated to be involved beyond the Presidental Election.

As a user I want to...

Earn badges when I attend a debate/ vote/ contact my rep...etc

I had to bring it back to my users...

Would gamification in an app that helps you be more politically informed be exciting? YES! Is it something that if I left it out of my MVP product it would still work? YES!

MVP Features:

- Log in/ Sign Up

- Bills in Congress

- Federal State/ Local Info

- Contact Representatives

- Elected Officials Profiles

- Upcoming Election

- Mock Ballot

Sketching & Lo-Fi Wireframes

Sketching helped me ensure that all the essential content was on the correct pages.

I made some quick sketches to start visualizing how some of these stories might look. As you will see later, the layout looks quite different from my final design - which shows the progression of the solution after iterations and research and usability testing.

Information Architecture

Creating a site map helped determine the hiearchy of my product.

After selecting my MVP features and outlining the content for each page, I created a site map. Since this was a product with a lot of content I had to be strategic with weeding out features that were not part of my MVP.

User Flows

My site map helped me determine that the "get involved" section of my application was not essential to solving the problem, therefore it was not a neccesity for my MVP

The time line of this project did not allow me to develop or explore this area further and I wanted to place more effort and time into the most critical screens.

Sketches to Prototype

Determining the hierarchy of my design was instrumental in turning my original sketches and ideas into a workable prototype.

The combination of the content of my lo-fidelity balsamic wireframes with the structure of my user flows helped me to transfer my ideas to Figma as mid fidelity wireframes.

Usability Testing

My first round of usability testing helped further narrow in on the best hierarchy and UI elements for my designs.

Usability testing was both informative and exciting. I was able to see my product in action and get useful feedback on my designs. I focused on the critical issues first and then worked down the line and tweaked any other issues that I felt would impact the the usability in my final designs.

Results: Uh Oh...People did not know how to vote!

The most critical issues users were having happen to fall on the candidate page.

The main issue was that the users had trouble voting for a candidate because they couldn't find the vote button. By simply moving the vote button from the upper right hand to more of the center of the screen made a huge impact on my users in the second round of usability testing. All subjects in the second round of testing knew how to vote and were quick to add a candidate to their mock ballot.

Candidate page before usability testing

Vote button was located on the top right of the page. Users could not find it easily and were unsure if it was even a button

Candidate page after usability testing

The vote button changed location as well as it's shape and color. This helped users identify it as an actual button.

Final Designs

Changes

Your final design can change A LOT from your initial assumptions and ideas. You really have to learn to leave your assumptions and biases at the door an not be married to a thought.

Information Architecture

Information architecture is a god send when it comes to designing a product with so much content.

Excitement

You may get oddly excited when there are problems found in your usability testing - this is because the testing is working!

Lessons

Incorporate trending political news stories, Specifically local news

Since the news section didn't make the first cut for my MVP features, I would like to do research on how I could provide news stories to users in an unbiased way. This could take the form of ratings by other users or some sort of bipartisan meter.

Next Steps!

Develop the event section of the application

There was so much interest in local events and issues from my users in my interviews. I would like to design a section of the app where users can find updates on things like community events and town meetings. This would help them feel like they are making a difference as well as support issues that they care about.

Voting online

This one is a bit more complicated, but ideally one of the things that would greatly increase voter turnout would be the ability to vote online. This is something that I would like to play around with and design for fun.