DEMOCRACY DESIGNED
Empowering citizens to redistrict the State of Michigan.
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THE PROBLEM
Michigan residents need a website where they can submit maps and descriptions of their Community of Interest.
In the November 2018 election, Michigan had a historic victory when they passed Proposal 2 to end gerrymandering. Within the next year, a 13 person commission will be seated whose job it is to collect information from as many Michigan residents as possible in order to draw new district lines.
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The information they will be collecting is regarding each resident's Community of Interest. The non partisan group Voters Not Politicians asked my team to begin researching and designing a website that Michigan residents could use to submit a map of their Community of Interest.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
MAKE OF THE TEAM
KEY GOAL
This project took 4 months to complete.
5 first year masters students from University of Michigan's School of Information.
Provide research and design wireframes to be used as a starting point for future development of this project.
SYSTEMS USED
Balsamic
Figma
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
My main role was to conduct interviews with potential users to learn what would help them draw a map of their Community of Interest.
Early on in the interviewing process I found that by asking questions such as "what does your day look like," and "who are the people you interact and work with on a regular basis?" Interviewees could more easily begin to identify their communities.
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Creating an affinity wall to group and organize common findings from interviews was also really important because it highlighted key elements we needed to incorporate into the design, including making the website available in multiple languages.
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As we began to build an affinity wall, key findings emerged which informed our design.
BREAKING DOWN THE RESEARCH PROCESS
My team began by conducting background research about how other states such as California and Arizona went about their redistricting processes.
We found that to start, it was helpful to base our work off of California's model for redistricting. Next, we interviewed Michiganders to see if they could identify their community of interest. Finally, we researched map-making software such as ArcGIS, Districtr and Google Maps. By creating a competitive analysis, we considered which mapping tool would be best to utilize in our design.
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Once we hand this background research complete, we did user testing in order to understand how citizens interact with mapping applications. We asked people to draw their neighborhood to see how they were able to navigate the tool. Though it was difficult for some to draw these maps, we learned that including landmarks helped people draw more accurately and users were the most familiar with the Google Maps application.
Understanding Communities of Interests
This is a picture of Mexican Town in Detroit, a community with a lot of local restaurant owners and businesses. If this community is divided, their vote, which is their voice, loses its power and their political representation is taken away.
DEVELOPING LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
We started sketching out ideas on a white board and then transitioned that design to medium-fidelity using Balsamic and finally high fidelity wires in Figma.
Key elements of our design included being able to contribute to this process without requiring the user to draw a map. Instead, they could write about who their community is, where they are located and why this community needs to be kept together for political representation.
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We also wanted to make sure the website is available in multiple languages, includes prompting questions and has instructional video to help guide users. Additionally, we thought it would be helpful to send users an email confirmation with a copy of their submission for their records.
PROGRESS FROM LOW FIDELITY TO HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Early sketches of wireframes I drew, including multiple language options and a progress bar.
Medium fidelity wireframes created in balsamic helped my team rethink how to best arrange the information.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
High fidelity wireframes built in Figma better inform the user on the submission process.
LESSONS LEARNED
This topic was very complex and required a large knowledge base in order to understand the issue and the key problem we were working to solve.
I was familiar with gerrymandering before working on this project, but not to the extent necessary to effectively work on this project. Using one state's process of redistricting as a template from which to work from was very helpful.
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This project taught me how to be honest about expectations. Our client's expectation exceeded my team's abilities, but we still delivered work that impressed them and was very useful for the next stage of the project. I learned that it is very important to be open and honest about expectations not only from the onset, but continuously throughout the life of a project.
