Team Members:
<aside> 🧭 Austin Roddick
</aside>
<aside> 🐸 SaraMei Wang
</aside>
<aside> 🧵 Julie Han
</aside>
<aside> 🍞 Isabelle Pan
</aside>
UX Designer + Content Strategist
Table of Contents
As university students, we are immersed in an active and passionate campus political community.
Most online political discussion happens on social media platforms or through direct messages. Our initial research showed us that much of this discourse is not healthy or productive. Many users reported having “feed fatigue” from the overwhelming amount of politically charged content on their newsfeeds, and many felt uncomfortable sharing views that differed from that of the majority.
We also found that many teens receive a poor political and voting education. Many first-time voters experience barriers to voting that stem from a lack of voting education that involves them directly. These voters would benefit from something that helps them learn how issues affect them personally.
By designing an educational product that extends a welcoming hand to first-time voters and the voting youth, we can create a safe learning space for those who feel overwhelmed, lost, or unrewarded for their personal “political journey”. If we can develop a product that normalizes the healthy discussion of controversial topics, we can teach users to think critically and to see opposing perspectives as learning opportunities.
<aside> 📅 10 Weeks
</aside>
<aside> 💁♂️ 40 Unique Participants
</aside>
<aside> 🔍 12+ Methods Used
</aside>
Initial user research was conducted through the use of a general survey, detailed contextual interviews, and participatory design methods. As the project progressed, research fell into a more stable pattern of weekly iterative usability testing. This testing generally followed a consistent format, but several weeks involved a rapid 'quick-and-dirty' selection of testing techniques designed to gain insight on specific features of our product.