Plain language is indispensable

On October 13, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Plain Writing Act of 2010. This is no small thing. Have you seen legislation and government documents, lately? The Act calls for writing that is clear, concise, well-organized, and consistent with best practices for the subject or field and the intended audience. 

Seems simple enough. To ensure that everyone is clear about plain language, the President issued a memorandum that provides guidance to heads of executive departments and agencies on implementing the Plain Writing Act. The six-page memo walks the talk -- that is, it lays out a phased approach for ensuring that Federal communications are clear and plain.

I think we can all agree that getting straightforward information from the government is desirable. But plain language is fundamental to the success of civic design. When communications are simple and plain, it is much more likely that citizens will know about the benefits they're entitled to -- and that they will be able to enjoy those benefits. Imagine what it would be like if everything from Social Security reports and letters from the Veterans Administration (both of which have been doing a beautiful job with plain language for years), to trademark applications, to government contracts, to instructions on ballots -- were clear and simple. 

What a world this would be. 

One of my favorite parts of the memorandum explains that each agency must have a page on their website explaining how they are meeting the requirements of the Act. 

Download the entire memorandum PDF here.

Why is it so hard to produce a usable, well-designed ballot?

This form changed the world.

Miami-Dade presidential ballot from 2000, the "butterfly ballot"

The picture is of the so-called "butterfly ballot" from Miami-Dade County from the presidential election in 2000. It is called a "butterfly ballot" because of how the candidates for this office flow over onto the second page of a two-page spread. The designer of this  punch card ballot wanted to make the type large enough for her overwhelmingly older voting constituency. This caused the contest to flow to two pages. That caused the candidates to interlace across the two-page spread. The holes are meant for every other one to the left or every other one to the right. There are horizontal rules to call out the candidate pairs and arrows to point to the holes. If you use trifocals, and you're in a garage with bad lighting, or a high school gym where there's a lot of glare on the page, how might the alignment go for you? Also, it isn't hard to imagine a voter poking the first hole for the first candidate on the left. Then you must poke the second hole for the second candidate - right?

This intentional-but-ill-informed design caused people to vote in ways they had not intended. It caused enough voters to make mistakes that it changed the outcome of a federal election. Which, because this election happened in the US and it was to elect the president, changed the world. This is not unlike the butterfly of the Chaos Theory.



Democracy is a design problem

Whenever I tell people that I work in voting and election design, I get two questions. The first is, So, is there money to be made there? (No.) The second question is, Why is this so complicated?

The people who ask the second question usually have an answer to offer me, already. The solution, they say, is that there should be one voting system for the whole country. This would impose consistency that could be supported with standards, testing, and enforcement. But it isn't that simple.

By tradition, running elections falls to the states and counties by virtue of the 10th amendment to the US Constituion, which says that anything that isn't covered in the Constitution falls to the people. It is considered a "states' rights" issue. All the Constitution says about elections is that there will be such to elect people to offices. Later amendments say who can vote (15th - barring discrimination based on race or color; 19th - womens' suffrage; 24th - eliminating the requirement to have paid income taxes; 26th - establishing 18 years as the legal voting age). Nothing says anything about who determines what system to use. It falls to the states.

The multiplicity of voting systems is just one tiny slice of this wicked problem. As with other design problems, there are constraints. In the case of ballot design, there are several that interact: 

• Voting technology is a moving target, so standards and best practices always lag. 

• Election management systems are reprehensibly difficult to use. EMSs, into which databases of candidate filings and questions or measures must be poured to make ballots are so difficult that many county election officials just send their databases in to their voting system vendors to do the ballot layouts for them. 

• Design specifications and language for instructions are embedded in county and state election legislation. Type font, weight, and size, grid, and position of instructions are often specified in state election code. Election regulations also often include the exact wording of instructions. It's not uncommon for the instructions to have been written generations ago, in negative, threatening, passive voice. 

• Election directors are excellent public administrators but they're not trained designers. In most of the 3,000 or so counties in the US, the people who run elections are county clerks or registrars who handle vital records such as birth certificates. Most are women, who, on average have held that job for 20 years. They usually are not tech savants, but they don't fear tech, either. They are busy, burdened, and budgetless. Elections have become more and more complicated to administer. Even if they could use InDesign to lay out their ballots, they're not trained designers. For many, a "usable" ballot is one that can be counted accurately by the voting system. And they want to keep costs as low as possible. Printing, mailing, upgrades, bug fixing, translations, storage -- all this costs money. 

• Ballot templates are issued at the state level. It is typical for the secretary of state, as the head of elections, to issue what's called a "ballot template" for state and federal elections. These also come from people who aren't trained designers and don't take into account the things that can happen when county and municipal contests are added to the ballot. They might not make room for multiple languages. They rarely put ballots through usability testing before live testing on Election Day. 

• Municipal and county districts overlap to create what are called "ballot styles." For example, there are places in Washington State where you could possibly have a unique ballot. There -- as in many voting jurisdictions throughout the US -- many lower level contests are included in the ballot, from school board to cemetery commission. The boundaries for those districts have been drawn in dozens of different ways. The right combination could draw a circle around your house. And yet, the county election official must ensure that you get to vote on exactly the contests you are entitled to. For this reason, some counties end up generating hundreds of ballot styles as different levels of districts overlap.

Poor ballot design affects the outcome of elections

When ballots are badly designed, voters get frustrated. People lose confidence in elections. Supporting elections on Election Day becomes difficult for poll workers.

All voters are affected by poor ballot designs. Older voters, first time voters, some minorities, and voters who have less education are very likely to make mistakes that prevent them from voting as they intend. Even white, wealthy, educated voters make mistakes on ballots. That's what happened in 2000. 

Although the butterfly ballot became the emblem for bad ballot design, we continue to see ballot design problems, both in paper ballots and on electronic touch screen systems. Technology has introduced more design problems. It has not solved them.


Voting: the 233-year-old design problem
There are best practice guidelines, commissioned by the US Election Assistance Commission from AIGA's Design for Democracy project, that are evidence-based. Voting system manufacturers are gradually supporting more and more of the guidelines, as local election officials demand it. States are updating election code to loosen design requirements. Local election officials embrace these changes. Although change can be difficult, these particular changes can make the jobs of local election officials easier because the voter's franchise is more likely to be protected with every design improvement.

Design can change the world. This is our superpower. We can affect the accuracy and accessibility of elections. But there aren't nearly enough people who are interested in civic design. Join the movement at the most important panel in the Free World, at South by Southwest in Austin on Monday, March 14 at 3:30 Central time. (Follow #uxvote on Twitter.) There we'll have on hand Dana Debeauvoir, county clerk from Travis County, Texas with Ric Grefe, the executive director of AIGA and the Design for Democracy project, along with Larry Norden, a civil rights lawyer and senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. I'll be moderating. See you there. And at poll worker training for the next election.

NY Mayor proposes improvements to voter access, including ballot design

Yesterday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced proposals calling for changes to state election law including allowing early voting. In addition, one proposal would let New Yorkers fill out their ballots at home and take them to a polling site; another will update the registration process and extend the registration period.

What we're most excited about, though, is that the Mayor is proposing simplifying the ballot design with a focus on plain language instructions.

This action is a direct result of talks that the Brennan Center for Justice's Larry Norden and UPA's Usability in Civic Life Project founder Whitney Quesenbery had with the mayor's office about New York's ballot and voting system design.

From the press release:

"Simplified Ballot Design:
Guaranteeing that ballot instructions are readily visible and in plain language will ensure that voters are better able to understand the process. Streamlining the ballot by eliminating unnecessary and uninformative text will make it easier to read."

Story in the New York Daily News

Press release from the mayor's office


ADDED afternoon 7 December 2010: The New York Times has picked up the story.

Dear New York, please let me correct my ballot

The Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) Voting and Usability Project and the Brennan Center for Justice are urging the New York State Board of Elections to change the interaction and a message on the state's new voting systems.

Today, the New York Times joined the discussion in an editorial.

The issue: New York is changing from using mechanical lever machines to optical scan ballots. This change is good. However, with New York's particular ways of voting that include cumulative voting, it seems likely that some voters will vote too many times in a given contest. Florida saw some of this with a similar configuration; after some counties changed the system configuration to return overvoted ballots to voters, overvotes went down while the number of ballots cast remained constant.

Right now, the systems are configured to hold the ballot in the tabulator when it detects an overvote or undervote, while showing the voter a message on a small screen.

  The message voters get when they mark their ballots for too many candidates on a contest, while the tabulator holds the ballot

This would be remedied by a clear message from the tabulating machine as it pushes the ballot back out for the voter to review and change, if she wants. But these systems hold the ballot while the voter reads a poorly worded message to decide what to do. 

The New York State Board of Elections argues that the tabulator returning the ballots automatically will slow voting. The Brennan Center and UPA argue that when the machine holds the ballots, voters are more likely to let the flawed ballot be cast. This means that vote on that contest will not count, which is likely to disenfranchise thousands of voters and call results into question.

Plain language makes a difference: Voters are more likely to vote as they intend when ballot instructions are simple and clear

How well do voters and poll workers understand the language of ballots and voting system instructions?

Today the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its report of a carefully controlled quantitative study in which 45 US adults over a range of ages and education levels each voted two ballots that differed only in the wording and presentation of the ballot instructions. The participants also discussed and compared specific pages from the two ballots. Janice (Ginny) Redish, Ph.D. led the study. She found that:

• Voters voted more accurately on a ballot with plain language instructions than on a ballot with traditional instructions.

• Voters with less education made more errors in voting.

• Voters could tell the difference and preferred the plain language ballot by a wide margin.

See the full report here: http://vote.nist.gov/NISTIR-7556.pdf, or go to vote.nist.gov/docmap.htm.

Ever onward: A hope for continued progress in election reform

The Bush Administration spurred major election reform in the US. This reform movement included technology, security, and accessibility. It urged improvements in plain language in public documents, transparency in process, and alternative ways and days for voting.

Election reform has resulted in some great things: ability to vote for many who were unable to vote independently before; examination of steps in the process that hadn’t received much attention before, such as recounts and record-keeping; research-based improvements in ballot design – and much more.

But there is more yet to be done. Many voters are disenfranchised – still – by suboptimal design and the lack of usability in election materials they receive, voting machines they use, ballots they mark. Here’s hoping that the new administration continues to see election reform as a priority and continues and expands funding for research sponsored by the federal government that will result in easier, more accurate voting.

-- Dana Chisnell

Note: This post reflects the views of the person who wrote and posted it. It does not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Usability Professionals' Association or its individual members.

Come hear: UPAers on ballot usability, plain language, and evaluating doc for poll workers

Several of us on the Usability in Civic Life Project at the Usability Professionals' Association will be speaking at events in 2009 on topics that we hope elections officials, design practitioners, and human factors researchers are interested in. The dates, places, events, topic titles, and speakers are listed below.

Date	Place	Event	Topic title	Speakers
Feb 6	Washington, DC	NASED	Usability Testing Ballots	Dana Chisnell
May 3-6	Atlanta, GA	STC	Rewriting the Voting Experience On Election Day	Susan Becker, Ginny Redish, Whitney Quesenbery, Josie Scott, Sarah Swierenga, Dana Chisnell
June 12	Portland, OR	UPA	Improving the User Experience of Voting	Ginny Redish, Dana Chisnell, Sharon Laskowski, Svetlana Lowry
July 7-11	Spokane, WA	IACREOT	Improving the User Experience of Voting	Dana Chisnell
July 19-24	San Diego, CA	HCI International	User Experience in Elections: Poll Workers	Dana Chisnell, Karen Bachmann

Style Guide for Voting System Documentation at NIST

We've talked here about how important is that instructions for voters be easy to understand. The other key person on Election Day is the poll worker. Poll workers are also users of ballots and voting systems and are often the front line in troubleshooting problems. A new report from NIST provides guidelines for writing voting system documentation. One value of good system manuals is that election officials often use material from them to create poll worker training and voter education -- so usability flows down stream.

Plain Language bill needs your help

A plain language bill has been working it's way through the US Congress. The bill passed the House several months ago, and we've been working to get the Senate version (S.2291) to the floor for a vote before the end of this session.

We were almost there. Now it's stalled, and we need your help.

We've copied an article below, but Senator Bennett (R. Utah) has blocked the bill on the grounds that it would be a problem for the Federal Election Commission and the Election Assistance Commission. Hmm. We feel a headline coming on: "Clear communication about federal election rules could endanger elections, says US Senator."

There are two simple answers to objections:

1. The law does not apply to regulations

2. Are they really suggesting that information about elections should be hard to understand

Here's how you can help: write or call your Senator, and Senator Bennett's office to express your opinion.

Tip to Whitney Quesenbery for whipping up this call to action.

Now, read the article below:
Utah senator stalls 'plain language' bill

By Terry Kivlan CongressDaily September 15, 2008

A bill mandating the use of "plain language" on government
forms, benefit applications, reports and other documents may languish
this year amid a crowded Senate schedule and an unanticipated hold by
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

The bill would not apply to regulations. It defines "plain
language" as language that "is clear, concise, well organized, and
follows the best practices of language writing."

It would direct the Office of Management and Budget to
issue guidelines for implementing the program within six months and
then monitor compliance among agencies.

In April, the measure cleared the Senate Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee on voice vote, while a similar
measure passed the House 376-1.

It was expected to breeze through the Senate just before
lawmakers left town for their summer recess when Sen. Charles
Grassley, R-Iowa, placed a hold on behalf of Bennett.

According to Bennett aides, he was concerned about its
impact on the Federal Election Commission and the Election Assistance
Commission -- both of which fall under the oversight jurisdiction of
the Senate Rules Committee, where he serves as ranking member.

"The FEC in particular is required to interpret campaign
finance law and issue regulations that are often full of legal terms,"
spokeswoman Tara Hendershott said in an e-mail. "These precise terms
may become lost in translation if [the FEC is] required to use
whatever OMB determines is 'plain English.'" Hendershott added that
while Bennett understands the need for clear communication, "he is
concerned about the unintended consequences of this bill."

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, sponsor of the legislation,
expressed disappointment in Bennett's move. The Hawaii senator said in
a statement that his measure "is a good bipartisan bill that would
improve Americans' access to their government," and "deserves an up or
down vote on the floor." Aides to Akaka and Bennett said last week
that they were discussing compromise language for the legislation but
had not reached an agreement.

Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., is not planning to try
to bring up the bill if Bennett will force him to file cloture,
according to a spokesman. But Bennett has come under pressure from
outside Congress. The National Small Business Association sent him a
letter last week asking him release his hold, arguing that the bill
would "not be a mandate" as such, and that it represented a "common
sense approach to saving small business -- and the federal government
-- time, effort and money."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0908/091508cdpm1.htm

UPA member Chisnell receives commendation from San Francisco Board of Supervisors for work in plain language and voting

In a brief ceremony held yesterday in the gorgeous board chambers at San Francisco’s City Hall, UPA member Dana Chisnell was recognized by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors along with four others for work on the City’s Ballot Simplification Committee. Board president Aaron Peskin introduced the committee members during the Board’s regular meeting on Tuesday, saying “Now I’d like to recognize a group that is little known and rarely recognized by the public. The Ballot Simplification Committee writes the summary digests of measures for the Voter Information Pamphlets sent out to voters before each election. For the November election, there are 22 measures on the ballot, the most in San Francisco history. It seemed time to recognize the many hours these people put in to make voting more accessible to San Francisco citizens.”

As Peskin distributed gold-sealed certificates to the committee members, committee chair Betty Packard thanked the Board for the honor and for working with the committee to explain often-complex ballot propositions in simple but accurate language.

The committee was formed by a charter amendment in 1997. The five volunteer members, all communications professionals, work together during public hearings to develop objective, unbiased, plain language summaries 300 to 500 words in length for each measure to appear on the city-county ballot each election. There will have been 5 elections between November 2007 and November 2008 in San Francisco, with a total of 55 measures on the ballot. There will be 22 local measures on the November 2008 ballot.

From left: Chair Betty Packard, Anne Jorgensen, June Fraps, Dana Chisnell, and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin



Photo (c) Bill Klenmens & Susan Becker

UPA member Dana Chisnell was nominated for the Ballot Simplification Committee by the Northern California Media Workers’ Guild and appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2005.

Her commendation from the board reads:

“For playing a vital role in informing San Francisco’s voters about local ballot measures, and for your outstanding endurance and patience in working to make complex legislation understandable to the general public, the Board of Supervisors extends its highest commendation.”

Links:

Ballot Simplification Committee
http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp?id=21619

San Francisco City and County Voter Information Pamphlets
http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/librarylocations/main/gic/voterpamp/votepamp.htm

San Francisco Board of Supervisors
http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp

It comes down to plain language

The ballot does not stand alone in its importance in an election. It is part – perhaps the center, but still only one part – of a larger “ecosystem” of an election that includes election materials like signs, notices, instructions, and information pamphlets.

This week I’ve been sitting as a member of the San Francisco Ballot Simplification Committee. Oddly, this city-chartered committee isn’t about simplifying ballots. But it does create election materials that complement the ballot: the committee writes digests of measures that are on the ballot. These digests, usually around 300-400 words long, are printed in a voter information pamphlet (VIP). The VIP is mailed to all active registered voters at least 30 days before Election Day.

The original legislation can be from 2 pages (for a voter initiative) to 300 pages (for a school district bond measure) long. Most voters won’t read that material, even though it is reasonably available. In San Francisco, voters have come to rely on the digests of the measures as a source of objective, unbiased, and plain explanations of the ballot propositions.

The basic skeleton is even simple. Each digest has 4 parts:

The way it is now
The proposal
A “yes” vote means
A “no” vote means

Using that outline, the 5 people on the committee work to capture the essence of each measure. See some examples here. A lot of what we do is translating. For example, today we worked on digests for three measures that if passed would change property and business taxes in the City. How do you talk about exemptions? We attempted to simplify to say who would and wouldn’t have to pay. Should we use the word “ceiling” or “limit” to talk about what defines the maximum revenue of a small business? (We chose “limit.”)

Though San Francisco is pretty progressive about drafting legislation that is accessible, terms of art (“budget set-aside”), domain jargon (can you say “total property tax increment funds”?), and purposeful obfuscation do creep in. Our goal is to create a text that is plain enough to understandable by the average 8th grader. Sometimes we succeed.

We’ll be done with the digests for November on Friday, August 8.

Plain Language Passes the House

A mandate for plain language in federal government communications is one step closer after the US House passed the Braley Plain Language bill last week. While this may not directly require plain language in voting materials and ballots, it certainly strengthens our argument.

A similar bill, S 2291, has moved out of committee into the full Senate.

More information: http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3479845

UPA Testifies at EAC Roundtable: Usability , Access, Plain Language

UPA’s Usability in Civil Life Project made another contribution to the national conversation about usability and accessibility in voting last week. Two members of the project gave testimony to the Election Assistance Commission at their Usability and Accessibility roundtable discussion regarding the Technical Guidelines Development Committee’s (TGDC) recommended voluntary voting system guidelines (VVSG). The event was held at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.

Usability in Civic Life director Whitney Quesenbery presented testimony that ties accessibility to accessibility in voting systems.

“It takes access plus usability to provide accessible usability to all,” she said in written testimony.

UPA Voting and Usability project member Josephine Scott attended for Karen Bachmann, User Experience manager at the Society for Technical Communications. Josie advocated the adoption of plain language for all voting materials: ballots, instructions, polling materials and poll worker documentation to simplify voting.

“Using plain language helps bring clarity to an inherently complex activity,” she wrote.

More information:
UPA Usability and Civic Life Project: http://www.upassoc.org/civiclife/
The Election Assistance Commission: http://www.eac.gov
Whitney’s Testimony: Connecting Usability and Accessibility in Elections
Josie’s Testimony: Plain Language: Adding Simplicity to Voting

PROPOSED FED PLAIN LANGUAGE RULES COULD HELP ELECTIONS, TOO

An important part of ballot usability relates to the use of language: on the ballot, in the polling materials and instructions for both voters and precinct workers. A bill before US Congress can have an impact: The Plain Language Bills, S2291 and HR 3548, require that US government communications - including "letter, publication, form, notice, or instruction" -- likely including balloting materials -- be presented in clear, easy-to-understand language.

The Usability Professionals' Association has submitted a letter endorsing this initiative. You can let your US Congress member and Senator know that you support the Plain Language bill as well. Visit http://www.senate.gov and http://www.congress.org.

The UPA Letter of Support: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/about_upa/
for_the_press/press_releases/press.080128.html

More information about Plain Language and government: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/access/
plain_language.html
http://www.plainlanguage.gov