improving the effectiveness of election workers in the polling place
Design for Democracy seeks to improve the election experience for voters by working with multidisciplinary teams to discover problems and develop solutions.One of Design for Democracys component groupsa team from Sapientexamined an election in Cook County, Illinois and discovered four phases in the voting process: registering, getting information, voting and monitoring choices; and five voter types: avid, issue, civic, excluded, and apathetic. The team also found that polling place workers are critical to the voter experience.Another component group, a team at Studio/lab Chicago, worked with the Cook County Clerks Office to design the pollworkers manualthe key training and reference tool used by the workers in helping voters. A structured approach that emphasized legible typography, consistent illustration and easy-to- understand symbols created a manual that election officials regarded as innovative and valuable.
user experience visual design graphic design anthropology ethnography/ethnographic studies information architecture