On Jan 26, 2009, at 3:18 PM, Susan Stuart wrote:
Anyway, I did a search in this discussion list for "government" and
only found a couple of threads. I was hoping to stir up discussion
around what work has been done from practitioners in our field on
government because I'd be genuinely interested to know--especially
in the realm of voting.
Susan,
There's actually quite a lot going on in government by experience
design professionals. Many, many US federal agencies have been working
on their web sites and other communications for ages, from Health and
Human Services to the Veterans Administration. You might check out
usability.gov as a starting point. There are thousands of UX people in
the federal government. They often get continuing professional
development through Web Manager University (as well as other outlets),
which is offered by the General Services Administration: http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/resources/training/university.shtml
Designers and researchers have been working hard on voting since 2000.
AIGA and the Usability Professionals' Association have been working
together, along with the Brennan Center for Justice on several
projects related to ballot design and best practices for design of
election materials. We are very much front and center on the topics,
including contributing to federal commissions such as the Technical
Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), which makes recommendations
to the federal government on standards and guidelines for voting
systems.
Check these out:
http://vote.nist.gov/docmap.htm
Lists several reports from research done over the last few years
related to usability and accessibility of voting systems, election
materials, and ballots.
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/design-for-democracy
Showcases work that AIGA has been doing on election topics, including
best practices for ballot and polling place designs, which are the
result of two years of research funded by the US Election Assistance
Commission.
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/better_ballots/
With help from several designers, social scientists, and user
researchers, the Brennan Center for Justice at NY reports on 13 major
cases of lost votes in elections and looks at what the design problems
were that caused them.
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/index.html
UPA has an ongoing project to work with local jurisdictions to
improve the usability and accessibility of voting in its Voting and
Usability Project. Several UPA members worked with the Brennan Center
to conduct usability testing of ballots in six counties and conduct
training in more places in time to make changes for the November 2008
election. One important development of this UPA Project was the LEO
Usability Testing Kit -- a simplified package for local elections
officials (LEOs) to follow to conduct usability testing of their
ballots with voters.
http://ballotusability.blogspot.com/
A blog that posts news about developments in ballot usability and
accessibility, as well as design and testing pointers.
Things move slowly, though, for many reasons. As I've worked on voting
topics over the last 5 years, I have learned heaps about the many
constraints that local elections officials have when it comes to
design, and the (lack of) willingness of voting system manufacturers
to improve user interfaces of their systems.
Dana
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Dana Chisnell
desk: 415.392.0776
mobile: 415.519.1148
dana AT usabilityworks DOT net
www.usabilityworks.net
http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/
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