RESEARCH BACKGROUND

In today’s modern culture, almost every aspect of our lives is dictated by politics, even if you aren’t involved with them. From climate change to civil rights, our world is shaped by the legislature and the representatives and officials we elect to create them. One of the most effective ways to have an impact on that legislature is to get involved with politics themselves. This process can be overwhelming and seem fruitless, but citizen involvement really does make a difference.

This project began with a combined interest in sustainability. As we began to conduct interviews and secondary research, a key insight developed: that in order to truly make an impact on sustainability, one should be involved in politics, but the politics surrounding many issues are polarized, confusing, and uninformative. From there, we began working on the Politics of Living, researching major political issues (Climate Change, Civil Rights, Business + Economy, Law & Punishment, Healthcare, and Education), the legislature surrounding them, & the ways to influence that legislation.

WEBSITE

The informational website was the main focus of the campaign and is where all of the information and interactivity lie.

User testing + process

For the initial task flow, we were looking at working with our real, collected content and organizing it in the most succinct and presentable way. We then put together a task flow to user test, and for the first round tested it on five users. After the first round, we decided to go back and research/benchmark sites to see different ways we could display various kinds of information and the specific interactions that could be included.

A challenging part was that we had global navigation for the site, but within each topic, there was additional sub-navigation. Working out the sub-navigation took some time as we wanted it to be intuitive, not too hidden, and also not be mistaken with the main navigation. We then revised our wireframes and did another round of user testing with five new users. Based on their feedback, a new page called “Explore & Educate” that provides a preview about all the topics was added, and changes were made to navigation, menu, type, etc. After this, we began to add photography, color, and design elements to the wireframes.

There was a focus on clear, simple to understand information, presented through text, photography, and infographics. By presenting facts in an engaging and straightforward way, we aimed to generate a deeper interest around highly present topics in politics and subsequently, encourage political activism and engagement. Furthermore, the site supplied a matching system, which allows the user to select their interest and then choose from appropriate political activities and organizations from automatically generated results.

PRINT + SOCIAL CAMPAIGN

The print and social campaign focus on providing high-level information on political issues, as well as voter registration & any accompanying information.

Tangible interactivity

For the presentation purposes within exhibitions and for an in-depth tabling kit, a poster and book of content were created as supplementary materials. In order to provide assets that were memorable and tangible, but still highly informative, we created a compilation of each section of the site in the format of a short book. The book created functioned as an example of what one in the series may look like, geared towards Climate Change.

Handouts, business cards that encouraged the user to engage with the information presented, and additional marketing collateral were created to be used as part of a tabling kit. Additionally, there would be a social media presence as a way to engage with the audience and public, and continue to keep them educated and updated.