In Seattle’s International District, Chinese American residents over the age of 65 face numerous obstacles to voting, including language barriers, age-related disabilities, and a shortage of accessible information resources.
According to King County Elections data, this population has a 25% lower voter participation than English-speaking voters in the same age group. We designed a mobile app addressing voting barriers faced by elderly Chinese Americans.
Role & Responsibility
UX Research, Design System Lead, Visual Design, Prototyping
In Seattle's International District, Chinese American residents over 65 are the largest group of "active registered voters." In 2020, 1,814 active Chinese senior voters registered for the presidential election, and 1,468 seniors registered for the 2016 presidential election - an increase of 346 registered voters in four years. Even registered voters are gradually growing, the turnout for the 2020 presidential election is 20% lower than turnout in 2016. Besides, data provided by King County Elections show that this demographic experiences about 25% lower voter turnout than English-speaking voters in the same age group based on the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
01 Empathize
Evaluating the data above, we planned to understand in our research：
▪️ Why are hundreds of seniors registered but failing to submit a ballot? ▪️What were some challenges/pain points during voting? ▪️ Were they able to vote independently? If yes, what is the voting process? ▪️ What difficulties did they encounter during the voting process? ▪️ How did they get information about voting?
02 Define
Who are we designing for?
We identified two stakeholder groups: our primary target users were Chinese seniors living in Seattle's Chinatown, and our secondary users were community workers serving the seniors.
Here is what we've learned💡
Other key insights💡
@ Accessibility According to community workers, seniors have limited mobility, varying degrees of vision and hearing impairment, and more difficulty understanding things. @Terminology The most challenging part of helping seniors fill out the form is that neither party can understand the terminology well. @ Psychological Stress Seniors become fatigued while filling in ballots, as understanding the measure and candidate is time-consuming.
Define the Problem ⛳️
# How might we design an experience for Chinese seniors and trusted community organizers to communicate efficiently and enhance their voting experience？
03 Ideate
How to create an interactive experience that is engaging, senior-friendly, and brings up a sense of accomplishment?
With an understanding of the user group and design goals, we produced a large number of ideas in a short period of time through two rounds of 6-8-5 sketching (6-8 sketches per person in 5 minutes), and after a group discussion, the most feasible approaches were selected is—
💡WeChat mini-program: ▪️Wide user coverage ▪️Short learning curve ▪️Easy access as Digital platforms (compared to physical ones) ▪️Simple and easy to develop
After identifying the platform, we began envisioning how the functionality could be designed. We created storyboards depicting some use scenarios.
04 Prototype
Low-fi Prototype
We designed three main functions for this app:appointment booking, election information, and voting guide. Here are some key screens for usability testing.
05 Test
User Testing
We conducted 4 usability sessions with Chinese seniors with the help of community workers.
😎 Some well-received designs are : ▪️Participants like the feature to schedule video calls with community organizers because completing the ballot alone was difficult for them. ▪️Participants responded positively to the audio capability.
🧐 Some frustrating moments： ▪️Not sure where to click when they first land on the page ▪️Too many layers increase the psychological burden of using ▪️Complicated structures & features (e.g. favorite ) ▪️Inconsistent design of buttons ▪️Don't know how voting would affect the community
Iteration
We made some key revisions: ▪️Reduce the user's workload by narrowing each function to one page. ▪️Add a user guide page ▪️Highlight community-centered information
06 Design
Simplified the IA to reduce cognitive load.
High-fidelity Prototype
07 Reflection
For the next step, we will think about allowing the elderly to customize the font size. We will also add buttons and prompt messages that encourage operation: [Loading], [Error], etc., providing timely feedback for seniors. We will carefully consider the addition of new features as we expand our application in the future. We want to focus on one service scenario rather than designing an app with complicated structures and layers. This project took place during the Covid-19 pandemic - all communication between team members and participants took place online. For future directions (when the pandemic has subsided), we would love to go to the International District in person - we will work with the community to actively promote the app to attract users and increase engagement. We plan to communicate regularly with community staff to understand the usage and issues. Following the principles of UCD design, we will continue to conduct usability research and iterate on our product.
