Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design
July 20, 2007 by Richard ConlanMarcia Lausen, http://www.designfordemocracy.org/
Marcia began the talk with a review of the infamous Florida ballot that plagued the US 2000 presidential elections. She then moved on to demonstrate an almost unbelievably worse ballot from a judicial circuit election in Chicago, which she offered to redesign. The redesigned ballot was inarguably clearer and easier to understand, raising the question of why interface designers are not more commonly involved in ballot layout.
Information Design :: Legibility vs. Creativity
- Mixed-case lettering is more readable than ALL CAPS
- Centered type is not the user’s friend
- Understand + understand the election hierarchy
- Minimize variance in size, type, width, etc., unless strictly necessary to improve understanding
- Black type on white is the most legible
The researchers then worked on applying lessons learned to other types of ballots, but ballots are really the tip of the iceberg. The design principles above were then usefully extended to redesigning voting instructions and manuals for training pollworkers. Efforts were then expanded to include class participation in design and evaluation of election related envelopes, forms, and other documentation related to the voting experience. Marcia and her students also got involved in the design of filing cabinets, pollworker trays, and other non-documentation paraphernalia.
Recent efforts have focused on spreading the word about design advancements, encouraging election officials to take interest and get involved, and getting out the vote to normally disenfranchised voters.