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.

Call to action: Volunteer to test or be a poll worker

Much of the content on this blog comes from people on the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) Usability and Voting Project. We're gearing up now to help local elections officials test their ballots and other election materials for usability for the November election.

Ballots are being defined and designed now. Most have to be completed within a few weeks.

Want to help test ballots for usability? Step up! We'd love to have you. Questions? Write to us at voting@usabilityprofessionals.org.


In the meantime, a few pointers about working on elections.

1. Usability and Voting is non-partisan
First, and most importantly, this is a non-partisan effort. Whatever our personal political beliefs, they stay separate from this work. You can read our ethics guidelines for usability and design professionals on http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/ethics.html

2. Sign up to be a poll worker
We know that it’s hard to find time to volunteer. But there is something that everyone in the US can do that takes just a day (or part of a day) of your time. Sign up to be a poll worker. With record turnout expected this November, new poll workers are needed more than ever to meet the target of 2 million poll workers set by the EAC. To find out how to be a poll worker, contact your local elections office or visit http://www.eac.gov/voter/poll%20workers

3. Volunteer to help your local election officials with usability testing
One way to help ensure that ballots get a good usability test is to volunteer to run the test yourself. If you do:

• Please use the LEO Usability Testing Kit. Every election official has received a printed copy of the report, and it would be useful – especially in this first wave -- if we all used the materials they have already been introduced to, and spoke with one voice. Plus, your feedback will help improve the Kit. http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/leo_testing.html
  
  
• Remember that election officials are in the middle of their busiest, highest pressure work period – final preparations for a highly volatile presidential election. This is a time to offer to help, not offer blame.
  
  
• Don't be discouraged if they say "not this time" – offer to contact them again in the spring for the off-season elections.
  
  
• Before you make any recommendations, take a look at the EAC's Best Practices Guidelines for ballot designs as well as the recommendations in the Brennan Center report, Better Ballots. But, don't be surprised if you are told that it "can't be done". Not only do many voting systems have limitations that can get in the way, but elections are governed by state laws and regulations, as well as expectations from current practice. See http://www.eac.gov/election/effective-polling-place-designs and http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/better_ballots/
  

4. Keep in touch
Let us know if you have any contacts with elections folks. We're trying to keep track of any usability work, so we can get a full picture of the impact of our efforts.


We'll be happy to talk to anyone who is interested, and support them in any way we can. Our goal is to make better design and usability part of every aspect of elections, integrated into the normal processes.


Links:
LEO Usability Testing Kit
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/leo_testing.html

Ethics guidelines for usability and design professionals working in elections
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/ethics.html

Information about being a poll worker
http://www.eac.gov/voter/poll%20workers

EAC Effective Polling Place Designs
http://www.eac.gov/election/effective-polling-place-designs

EAC Election Management Guidelines
http://www.eac.gov/election/quick-start-management-guides

Brennan Center for Justice report Better Ballots
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/better_ballots/

UPA’s Voting and Usability Project
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/civiclife/voting/
voting@usabilityprofessionals.org.

Poll Worker Training Blamed for Voting Snafus

Proof that plain language requirements apply especially to pollworker materials and training:

The Associated Press ran a story this week about the number of polling problems that can be attributed to poor poll worker training. The snafus include hiding electronic voting machines because the workers did not like them; handing out the pens used for touch screens to mark paper ballots and calling them "invisible ink pens." Poll workers have provided wrong information - especially about this year's spate of confusing primaries - and inadvertently disenfranchised voters.

The story notes the concerns of the League of Women Voters, whose researcher, Lloyd Leonard, notes that we are "running the most important part of our democracy on the backs of untrained, poorly paid volunteers." Some two million pollworkers form the largest one-day work force, according the Pew Center on the States. Most receive just a few hours of training.

The training itself can fall far short: some did not receive instruction about operating the voting system in the precinct they were working. Some did not have an opportunity to actually practice on the machine: election day was their first experience following training.

UPA's Voting and Usability Project members note that good instructional material doesn't replace good training. Too many pollworkers are put in situations where they aren't well prepared and where they don't have the information they need. Usability and technical support professionals both know how "creative" people can be in trying to solve problems. We can't change human nature, but we can understand the stresses and problems of running an election, and be prepared.

The constraints of running an election often mean that pollworkers will need to fall back upon their instruction manuals and other written materials. Election officials are encouraged to 1) review their instructional materials, 2) clarify them with the plainest language possible, and 3) test their instructions with poll workers using a process similar to the LEO usability testing process for ballots.

More information:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080223/
ap_on_el_ge/pollworker_problems