© 2004 Digital Habitats E-voting: Starting from People Louise Ferguson UPA Voting and Usability Project Director, Digital Habitats Ltd [email protected]

© 2004 Digital Habitats

E-voting: Starting from People

Louise Ferguson

UPA Voting and Usability Project

Director, Digital Habitats Ltd

[email protected]

4 November 2004


Paper ballots

• Much improved design in recent years

• Still suffer from design problems


London Mayoral election 2004

“There were no instructions on the paper at all. It simply said ‘what is your first and second choice for mayor?’. I said my first choice was ‘x’ and my second was the same guy, so I voted for him twice. But…you’re not allowed to vote for the same person twice.”

[Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow]



Abbreviations – polling card

Your Polling Station is:

LORDSHIP LANE T R A HALL

ENTR. REAR OF BEW COURT

[From Southwark polling card, 2004]


Some design issues

paper size and format - print quality - text layout - use of white space - fonts - font sizes - use of bold, capitals, underline - use of graphics, icons, pictograms - use of colour (paper, text, graphics), colour coding and ‘colour wording’ - contrast - information (parties, candidates): wording, appearance, position - explanation: wording, appearance, position - instructions: wording, appearance, position - syntax - active/passive - positives/negatives - punctuation - text justification - valid mark(s) and relative position - multiple ballots per paper - abbreviations and acronyms - consistency: information, formatting, terminology


E-voting

• Opens up new possibilities

Creates more possibilities for tripping up - greater complexity

• Requirements of e-voting are unique…

…but the design issues are not• Easy to design badly, difficult to design well


Even more design issues – e-voting

height and pitch of screen - controls, input devices: type, appearance, labels, location, grouping, ruggedness, force required - screen format and size - luminance - use of flashing/flash rates - display adjustability - system navigation - logon procedure - security procedure - location of information in navigation - location of explanation in navigation - location of instructions in navigation - group and candidate grouping and demarcation - ‘below the fold’ and scalability; scrolling, paging - alphabetical order/randomisation - selection mechanism - relationship to candidate information - button size, colour, position, relative position - button text - ‘live’ areas on touch screen; mapping to input - feedback (visual, auditory), response time - ballot review options: location, language, options - procedure for reporting undervoting to voter - procedure for amending, restarting; reversing, clearing votes - skipping ballots - casting a blank ballot - system checking on inputs, alerts - accessing help - content and format of help – website addresses


For voters with

• No vision, limited vision• Colour-blindness• Reading problems• Learning difficulties• Limited English• No hearing, limited hearing• Limited movement, shaking• Poor co-ordination• Limited strength• Limited physical access• …vision deteriorates from around 40 years old


And even more design issues for accessibility

location - selecting accessibility options - system timing, pacing - clarity of language - audio content - audio options - audio quality, volume - screen responsiveness - force required for input device - troublesome colours/colour combinations - colour coding - size of buttons - button colours - feedback redundancy – coercion


Can my grandmother use it?


…and what the law says

“One area that was prescribed in law was that the pilots had to have a replication of the ballot paper on the voting screen. In practice, this did not work very effectively as it was based on a paper design principle and it did not fit with the general design concepts used on the web.”

[Electoral Commission. Ballot paper design: Report and recommendations. June 2003]


• Electronic voting districts <33%

• Electronic voting reported problems >55%

[MSNBC, 3 Nov 2004]


SCOPE research report Polls Apart, 2003

“We do not believe any kiosks represent an improvement to the traditional ‘pen and paper’ method.”



E-voting in the wild…

• Is e-voting a private process?• Who controls the home computer? – from household registration to

household computer • Workplace monitoring• E-voting period – implications for campaigning• Interaction between campaign websites/pop-ups etc and official

voting sites• Independent monitoring/observation?• Where is the research?


Usability

"The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use“

[ISO standard on usability: ISO 9241,1998]

Usability is key to free and fair elections.


SCOPE research report Polls Apart, 2003

“…across all the channels in all the pilots [it was felt that] the usability could be improved. It sounds obvious but making something as simple as possible will make it more accessible to more people.”


Dimensions of usability - the 5 Es

• Effective• Efficient• Engaging• Error Tolerant • Easy to Learn

[Quesenbery, 2001]


Designing for usability means designing for and with users

Thanks to

Gary Larson


Designing for usability

• Early focus on users and tasks– User research BEFORE system design– Typical users, not ‘experts’ or developers

• Empirical measurement– Establish testable behavioural specifications– Study user behaviour through user testing – This is not market research

• Iterative design– Modify design and repeat as necessary


Usability testing

• People invariably say one thing and do another

• Observing what people actually do, one-to-one with the realistic materials/equipment

• With real citizens– Not experts or developers

• Not the same as focus groups, or system/functional testing


Voting ecosystem

• Electoral officials and poll workers• Candidates and their representatives• Voters

• Voter registration• Election information• Candidate information• Polling day• Counting; getting the results


Accessibility now on the agenda

• Campaigns from disability rights organisations– SCOPE, RNIB

• Disability Rights Commission

• Legislation – e.g. Disability Discrimination Act 1995


Usability and accessibility

• Plentiful research on interaction design, cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction

• No UK voting usability standards

• Systems not developed in compliance with standards

• Lack of usability expertise in the voting design process


International problem

“In general, voting systems have not been measured for usability nor have they been developed using a user-centered design process.

“We do not know the degree to which voters cast their vote NOT as they intended due to confusion with the user interface.”

[Sharon Laskowski, Head of Usability,

US National Institute for Standards and Technology]


Don’t rely on system vendors

“Voting system vendors have limited awareness of the field of usability and have only limited awareness of accessibility.”

[Bill Killam, 2004, after having reviewed some 30

current e-voting systems and interviewed vendors]


US standards

• IEEE – Standard P-1583 Section 5.3: Usability and Accessibility Standards– Updated version in progress

• Elections Assistance Commission – Technical Guidelines Development Committee– Started work 2004– Due to report formally spring 2005

• Improving the Usability and Accessibility of Voting Systems and Products. National Institute for Standards and Technology report to US Congress, April 2004


IEEE Standard (2003 version)

Examples:

• “The use of colour for coding shall be redundant with another coding method.”

• “Do not use abbreviations or acronyms.”


Recommendations

• Learn form the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Design Research

• Learn from what’s happening elsewhere– Don’t try and reinvent the wheel– Consider NIST’s 10 Recommendations to US Congress

• Introduce user-centred design and usability testing to the e-voting process

• Develop performance-based usability standards and conformance tests for voting systems


Resources and contacts

• Blog: http://www.louiseferguson.com/cityofbits.htm

• Website: http://www.louiseferguson.com

Voting resources: http://www.louiseferguson.com/resources/evoting.htm

• Email: [email protected]

Documents

© 2004 Digital Habitats E-voting: Starting from People Louise Ferguson UPA Voting and Usability Project Director, Digital Habitats Ltd [email protected]