Designing a voting app for people with disabilities
Although voting on your own device for national elections is a reality only for certain types of voters (military, remote, etc) and in a limited number of countries, it is more common for non governmental elections and votes (union voting, home owner coops, etc).
Soon, it is likely that election jurisdictions will begin to use consumer off the shelf devices as part of the voting apparatus they put in place.
This post focuses on the design questions and challenges we faced at votebox when we started designing an accessible, responsive, Web standards-compliant interface that would be accessible to voters with low literacy or mild cognitive disabilities.
There has already been some fantastic studies done on voting accessibility so my goal here is not to share our understanding but rather get additional comments and feedback on the work we did.
Our goals
Although the list of accessibility guidelines is very long, four principles are central. Our primary goal is to respect these principles.
- PERCEIVABLE
Information and user interface components must be presented to users in ways they can perceive. This means that users must be able to comprehend the information being depicted. It means:
- Provide text alternatives for non-text content.
- Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia.
- Content can be presented in different ways without losing meaning.
- Make it easier for users to see and hear content.
2. OPERABLE
User interface components and navigation must be operable (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform). It means:
- Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
- Give users enough time to read and use content.
- Do not use content that causes seizures.
- Help users navigate and find content.
3. UNDERSTANDABLE
Information and the operation of a user interface must be understandable. Users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface. It means:
- Make text readable and comprehendible.
- Make content appear and operate in predictable ways.
- Help users avoid and correct mistakes.
4. ROBUST
Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. As technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible. The guideline under this principal is:
- Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools.
Votebox’s mockups
Below you’ll see a sample of the voter flow. Not all the screens are shown but the ones we show appear in the right order.
First screen : welcoming voters
Second screen : voting
Third screen : voter verification
Fourth screen : voter receipt
I purposefully left the images uncommented. I am hoping to get some constructive feedback to help the team improve the Votebox’s voting experience.
Many Thanks!
Melchior
The Votebox blog | https://votebox.co
