Slate
An app to inform, educate, and empower voters on proposed bills happening in their local and state governments.
My role
UX/Product Designer
Responsibilities
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
Target audience
Voters of all ages interested in being informed on legislation occurring in their state and local governments.
Project problem
Outside of presidential elections, it is very difficult for voters to stay connected with candidates, policies, legislative bills, and other legislative activities happening in their local municipalities that directly affect them.
Project Goal
Slate is a platform to help inform, educate, and empower voters to get involved in their local and state legislature.
Research study details
I studied voter engagement at the state and local level to get a sense of how voters get involved. I found that very few voters are engaged at the state and local levels, vote less, and often are not sure who their local leaders are. They have been educated that they need to vote, but beyond voting there are not many tools to help them stay involved. This almost feels intentional. My work on this app is a start at reducing this gap.
Personas
Initial designs
I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically on informing voters and giving them tools to track bills in process.
Wireframes
I developed digital wireframes to determine overall page layout and navigation.
Usability testing results
Users want to see a summary of bills being proposed in their area.
Users want to be able to save a bill and be notified as it progresses.
Users want to find out how they can get involved, especially on bills they care deeply about.
High fidelity mockups
I developed high fidelity mockups and a working prototype.
Impact
Users shared that they loved the idea of finding all this information in one place. They haven’t seen anything like it and think it would be a great tool to stay informed and more involved.
What I learned
I learned that even though the problem I was trying to solve was a big one, diligently going through each step of the design process and aligning with specific user needs helped me come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.
Next steps
Conduct research on how successful the app is in reaching the goal to inform and empower voters.
Connect with campaign runners to get a sense of how they would utilize an app like this.
Create a notification system so voters can be reminded when activities are occurring around the bills they are following.