The NY Times opinion page reflect a similar opinion as Josie on the topic of voting machines. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/opinion/22mon2.html
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Scott, Josephine <j.sc...@techsmith.com>wrote: > I can add another few thoughts to this discussion. After working for > nearly 15 years as a voting official, I became a UX professional. Somehow, > I couldn't leave this voting thing alone, though, and I've worked with Dana, > UPA, Design for Democracy and Brennan on projects. In addition to all of > the excellent reasons already given by Jared and Dana, here are a few more > thoughts: > > -- Even though you entrust your money to the ATM machine, you know that you > can audit the veracity of your transaction at any time from multiple > locations (bank, phone, Web to name a few). A voting system cannot allow > you the same opportunity. > > -- Voting systems have an even higher mandate with regard to reading and > understanding. (In other words, the best system can be voted with confidence > by the nearly illiterate.) > > -- It is easy to underestimate the most important satisfaction metric of > all: that a vote has been voted properly (as intended), recorded and stored > safely, and that each vote was counted as the voter intended. > > The part about being counted as intended gives us apparently conflicting > requirements: > > -- My vote must be flawlessly secret > -- Vote counting must be flawlessly transparent > > Now, let's add that literacy challenge...and the multiple language > challenge (ok, ATMs do this piece well, I think) and the access challenge. > Yep, this system has to be accessible by nearly every standard you can > imagine: vision, hearing, mobility...even cognition. > > So, how do you design this system? Most of the heated discussion about > voting surrounds the design problem posed by these considerations. > > I think it is easy to make an ATM style voting system, but not one that > meets all of these needs. What makes voting a greater design problem is the > other little item: every citizen in a democracy must know that their vote > was secret and that counting is transparent. I have to know with reasonable > assurance that my vote was counted properly, and I have the right to vote > without influence. > > No easy task. Next time you vote, hug your clerk. She's doing great work. > > Josie Scott > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- John Chin User Experience Professional jc...@acm.org http://www.johnpchin.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
