Overview

The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a citizens’ organization that was formed in the 1920s from the women’s suffrage movement that secured the right to vote for women. Today, they empower not only women but all American citizens at national, state, and local levels.

A Team of 3 UX Design Generalists

Methods we used: Surveys, User Interviews, Heuristic Evaluation, Affinity Mapping, Comparative and Competitive Analysis, Feature Prioritization, User Journeys, User flows, Wireframes, Usability Testing, Hi-Fi Prototype (Figma).

The Challenge

Redesign a text-heavy platform where new and current voters feel politically informed and engaged.

The Problem

The LWV users need to feel confident when participating in politics and ready to make an informed decision when it's time to vote.

Currently, The LWV has a robust website with somewhat up-to-date content in their blog and newsroom, but it seems disconnected from the rest of the site. They also don't have a way to let their site visitors track and engage in a meaningful way around current and evolving issues, discussions, and ongoing actions they can take.

Hypothesis

We believe that by providing users with approachable and non-partisan politics, and a simplified, user-friendly experience, The people will be better informed and ultimately feel empowered to make informed decisions and exercise their right to vote.

The Solution

Fostering political engagement and empowering voters with correct non-partisan information through a responsive platform (mobile-first) that provides users with easy-to-digest access to educational resources, community outreach, and up-to-date issues.

Research

To confirm our initial observations and begin forming a hypothesis backed by data, we created a user survey to uncover the core problems with the product that we could prioritize for user and business needs.

Surveys

The first step in our design process was conducting a 28-question survey with a sample of 31 participants.

Understanding the two main types of LWV users

Almost half of our participants answered that they did not vote because they felt that they did not have enough information to make an informed decision. This gave us insights into our first type of user; The Anxious Amateur, The priority for this user is affiliation.  We also asked participants about their political involvement and participation in events. Half of the participants responded that they do not attend political events, and out of those who did not participate in events, indicated disinterest as their reason. These results gave us insight into our second type of user, The Dubious Dabbler. The priority for this user is dialogue and open discussion.

The Anxious Amateur.

The priority for this user is affiliation.  Wants to have an opinion. Gets information mostly from social media. Becomes overwhelmed with too much information (at once). Interested in becoming more involved in events in their area. Motivated to read more and become more informed in the current political climate. Hesitant to participate in a discussion if they don’t feel like they know enough about the topic.

The Dubious Dabbler.

The priority for this user is dialogue and open discussion. Enjoys rhetorical dialogue. Appreciates other’s opinions. Motivated to be more involved. Frustrated by emotive conversations. Appreciated fact-based opinions. Open-minded, but perhaps can be easily persuaded. Does not want to identify or be labeled to a specific party.

Comparative Analysis

We found three organizations that are comparable to the organization. They are also non-profit, non-partisan, and share the same goals as the LWV. Their objective is to increase democratic participation in every election. These organizations are; VOTE.ORG, WHEN WE ALL VOTE, and ROCK THE VOTE.

We ran a heuristic evaluation on these comparable websites using The LEMERS technique.

The Outcome

We learned from participants that these organizations' websites, both on desktop and mobile, were, in general, more organized with their content, their hierarchy was clearer, and their UI was more engaging than The League of Women Voters website.

Ideation

We began our ideation process by working on the user flows and sketching our ideas with some design goals in mind,

• Create an engaged community • Accessible information • Correct information  • Keep people informed and up-to-date • Safe discussion spaces • Positive reinforcement • UI unity with Vote411.org (sister organization)

Lo Fidelity Wireframes/Sketches

Final Design: Hi-Fidelity Prototype in Figma (coming soon)

Next Steps

Responsive design Create the desktop version and improve the overall UI. Short Term

Merging Websites Analyzing the pros and cons of merging websites with Vote411.org (sister organization). Long Term Location services/community Highlighting local, state leagues in the area after sign up. Long Term Social media integration. Long Term Connect all leagues to the national site At the moment each "league" has a different website. Long Term Calendar and Event Tickets Implementation of detailed calendar and “tickets” like Eventbrite for events. Long Term