Demand a better ballot

Election Day is finally here, and as ballots are cast and counted, I’m hopeful that voters will declare victory for the candidates and measures that I care most about. But as I review my sample ballot in preparation for my visit to the voting booth, I am discouraged to find that it includes many of the design flaws that the AIGA’s Design for Democracy project has been working to expose and eliminate over the past 8 years. As AIGA reports on their website:

“In July 2007 the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) accepted AIGA Design for Democracy’s research and best practice recommendations for ballot and polling place information design. Guidelines and editable samples were distributed to 6,000 election officials across the country this January. As a result, local jurisdictions now have the tools to apply communication design principles and make voting easier and more comprehensible for all citizens.”

Why, then, am I holding a ballot that violates at least three of the Top 10 election design guidelines, including the use of all caps, center-alignment, and tiny fonts?

As Marcia Lausen notes in Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design, typographic specifications are often dictated in well-intentioned but misguided election law. So while the valuable work of Design for Democracy is to be commended, it alone is not enough to bring about the change we need in the design of ballots and other voter information and materials.

So as you head to the polls, review your ballot carefully — not only for its content, but for its design. Make note of the ballot’s flaws, and contact your state and county registrar and representatives to press them to implement the AIGA guidelines. In addition, consider participating in the Polling Place Photo Project, which seeks to document what is politely described as the “richness and complexity" of the voting experience in America.

Most of all, don’t forget to vote!

Finding inspiration from photos via Flickr groups

I often find design inspiration from photographs. One of my favorite sources for this is Flickr groups. Lately, I’ve been really distracted by the list of my groups on the newly designed homepage. Here are some of the best that I find directly relevant to the work we do.

Visual language and interface inspiration

Possibly my favorite group of the entire collection is Inspiration Boards. This set is a compilation of people’s stuff. It might be postcards, magazine cutouts, interior design samples, shells, or a mish-mash of other objects. I find this group particularly interesting because it approaches design the same way we approach early explorations in visual interface design. When designing a product we’ll do research, define the visual strategy, and then design visual language studies that are an emotional, immediate representation of the visual strategy. The studies are arranged similar to inspiration boards in a way that separates them from any specific behavior so that our design team and our project stakeholders can have a more focused conversation about the visual design without being distracted by the interaction design.

Designing affordances using reference material

The dials, knobs, buttons etc… and Push Buttons groups are great for exploring user interface control languages. These groups cover examples from everyday life that are sometimes new, sometimes old and worn. Designing realistic controls can be difficult so it’s helpful to reference photographic material when designing your own creations. Texture is a similar group of photos with… you guessed it… texture! Of course, this shouldn’t be a sole substitute for getting out there with your own camera.

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Why I hate the substitute spinning instructor, and what the heck that has to do with design

As interaction designers, it’s natural for us to pick apart the failings or successes of every website and electronic device we see and apply that knowledge to our work. But every day, we’re faced with countless products, services, and even people that provide us with positive or negative experiences. Gaining an understanding of what makes each of those non-digital experiences good or bad also exposes patterns and commonalities that we can draw upon when it’s time to design.

Not long ago I found myself growing increasingly annoyed and frustrated with a substitute instructor for my regular spinning class at the gym. To keep myself from leaping off my bicycle and strangling her, I spent the class analyzing what worked so well with my regular instructor’s approach, and what made me so crazy with the substitute’s.

Setting aside the fact that the regular instructor is a Brazilian Adonis and the sub was a perky size 0 cheerleader type, I identified that the substantive distinctions in their styles were tone and frequency of communication. My Adonis is the strong silent type; he speaks only as much as is necessary to guide our action on the bikes, using a tone that conveys respect: You have shown up for class, and are therefore self-motivated, driven, and capable of pushing yourselves to your appropriate limits. He lays out the plan for the training, cranks up the music, and lets us get in the zone. The sub, on the other hand, yammered over the music non-stop throughout the class, reminding us to breathe (gee, thanks!), stressing that we came here for a workout, and regularly demanding that we give her 10% more. Excuse me? I don’t even like you - I’m not giving YOU 10% more of anything!

As luck would have it, back here at the studio, I’m working on a business application that will be used primarily by workers who are relatively new to the job. (Advancement at my client’s company happens quickly, so just as users get good at what they’re doing, they get promoted and no longer have to perform the work that the software supports.) Knowing that the application we’re designing will need to guide users through their work, and keeping in mind my recent experiences at the gym, I made sure to ask users about the qualities they appreciated most in their human mentors. My design partners and I then took care to embody those personality traits in the visual and interaction design of the application. (For a nice list of factors that affect the perceived personality of an application, see Martijn van Welie's blog post Brand behavior in interaction.)

So the next time you find yourself particularly delighted or disgruntled as you move about your daily life, challenge yourself to figure out why — it just might help you hone your design skills.

The Birds Nest & the television experience

Amazement operated on many levels during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. During each performance, my mind struggled to process what I was seeing. What is this? How in the world did they pull this off? Where does an idea like this even come from?

TV: These small boxes will now take the form of a keyboard, and the keyboard will sprout a peach blossom.
Doug: ... Huh.
TV: Now the small boxes, which have made precise, machine-like movements for the last ten minutes, will reveal that humans have been operating them the whole time.
Doug: ... Wait, what? ... How ...
TV: Now a globe will rise, and dozens of people will fly around it in precise circles.
Doug's brain: [explodes]

In a Wahington Post editorial, Roger K. Lewis recently wrote that NBC didn't once mention the architects of the venue, Beijing National Stadium. Hmm. That's funny. I didn't mention them during the telecast either, but that's because my brain had been reduced to a pre-verbal state.

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