Ballot Design and Usability

Discusses the importance of usability testing as a final check on ballot layout and instructions text. Many of the problems in the report would likely have been caught with even an informal test. The report highlights a usability testing kit for local election officials, the LEO Usability Testing Kit.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Government

Lessons Learned from Discount Usability Engineering for the Federal Government  

This case study presents lessons learned from usability engineering in a federal government setting. Technical communicators are becoming increasingly involved in usability issues but may face difficulties in addressing them. For example, producing web communications for the federal government presents special challenges, such as time and financial restraints, legal requirements, technical constraints, and an internal focus. Discount usability engineering helped the CDC address these challenges in developing an injury data web application. The lessons learned can help technical communicators advance usability as a priority in their workplaces and overcome constraints and challenges they face.

Pettit Jones, Colleen. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Usability>Government>Case Studies

Lessons Learned from Discount Usability Engineering for the U.S. Federal Government    

Presents a case history of implementing discount usability engineering in a U.S. federal government agency. Discusses the case history's implications for technical communicators who must implement Web communications in a restricted environment.

Pettit Jones, Colleen. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Usability>Government

Teaching Election Officials Usability Testing

The election calendar is very tight, with legally mandated deadlines and other constraints, all conducted in the public view. The UPA Voting and Usability Project wanted a way to fit usability testing into that schedule, and give election officials a way to do what they all want: run excellent elections.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Government

User Research of a Voting Machine: Preliminary Findings and Experiences    

This paper describes a usability study of the Nedap voting machine in the Netherlands. On the day of the national elections, 566 voters participated in our study immediately after having cast their real vote. The research focused on the correspondence between voter intents and voting results, distinguishing between usability (correspondence between voter intents and voter input) and machine reliability (correspondence between voter input and machine output). For the sake of comparison, participants also cast their votes using a paper ballot.

de Jong, Menno D.T., Joris van Hoof and Jordy Gosselt. Journal of Usability Studies (2007). Articles>Usability>Government>Netherlands

Voting and Usability Projects: How You can Participate

The UPA Voting and Usability project works to create a better elections process by improving the usability of ballots and voting systems.

Scott, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Government>Civic

Working to Improve the Civic Experience

What has UPA done to encourage more useable and accessible government? Quite a lot, it turns out. UPA supports efforts to improve the usability of elections, support plain language, and remove barriers to civic access for people with disabilities through an alphabet soup of projects and events.

Scott, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Government