I’m not going to turn this into a full-time political blog, but I just spent the evening researching local issues and candidates and a thought occurred to me – does anyone test the usability and the user experience of the democratic process?
There’s a number of different ways to approach this question. The usability of voting systems is a big part of it, and in the case of electronic voting machines, this would be identical to traditional usability testing. I’m going to put that question aside for now since I haven’t studied it very closely and talk about the information seeking portion of the electoral user experience.
Also, I apologize in advance for making this post very U.S.-centric. Please comment below on how these issues apply in your country.
Political information seeking
We are completely inundated with information and misinformation about the major candidates for national office, from a wide variety of communication media. Everything from dinner-table conversations and door-to-door canvassing to cable news, candidate web sites, and political blogs can influence how we vote.
I just donated $25 to Barack Obama. Much like many other geeks before me. Obama is clearly the choice of the country’s programmers, researchers, and other eggheads. Why?