Innovations for the Innovator: Redesigning the Princeton Election Consortium Website

Abstract

Technology is undermining democracy as we know it. As studies from the likes of Pew Research correlate the progress of technology with institutions that are weakener, less responsive, and have higher levels of dissatisfaction, the need to reverse this trajectory has never been more dire. One player working to do so is the Princeton Election Consortium (PEC), which uses technology to provide nonpartisan election and democracy analysis. Though their work is excellent, the outdated design of their website may be stunting their own ability to reach and inform individuals. This paper proposes and utilizes a novel bottom-up redesign approach that utilizes user feedback to inform design decisions. Using this approach, a series of user surveys, mockups, and public comment periods are employed to understand the needs of the current readership and how to satisfy them best. While the redesign is still in progress at the time of publication, unique insights can already be drawn from the research thus far. Though the proposed redesign has demonstrated a marked improvement over the current site regarding navigation, accessibility, and organization, many readers preferred the blog-like layout of the current site compared to the grid-like layout of the redesign. Moving forward, a second iteration of mockups should be developed that merges the improvements of the first redesign with the form factor of the current site. In conclusion, this paper aims to demonstrate and document a methodology that peer democracy and election reform sites can adopt in leading their own redesigns.