Abstract
The main aim of this study is to understand how the HCD process can contribute to the South African ballot design to help ensure that elections are indeed free and fair.
A key factor in maintaining free and fair elections is the ballot. This paper explores how the current paper ballot system, can be redesigned to accommodate an increased participation list and help voters identify and confirm their preference. The design of a ballot paper considers aspects from how voters identify their preferred candidate, clearly make their mark so that election officials can acknowledge it and ensure that all candidates presented on the ballot are treated equally. South Africa’s current ballot design was based on the 1994 national election’s voter education sample ballot and was designed in lieu of an actual ballot design. The ballot paper was based on simple logic using a modular layout system, and although this design was not tested for usability it was adopted by the IEC as the standard for all elections. The bigger, systemic question of voter insight in the ballot redesign may benefit from a human-centered design (HCD) perspective, particularly in terms of how to engage the politically disengaged and evaluate usability of the ballot paper. In order to better understand voters' requirements and identify design opportunities based on those insights, IDEO's Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, which incorporates empathy, offers a systematic process built on voters' first-hand experiences.
To redesign the South African ballot paper, focus groups and expert interviews confirmed the specific needs, preferences, and experiences of voters. The empathy phase within HCD provided additional insights and avenues to improve voter engagement and explored issues raised in the existing ballot paper design. Potential design solutions were explored to match voters' needs and preferences, creating an opportunity to address the ballot paper not fitting on the voting desk. This helped to focus the Design Challenge to redesign the ballot paper by relooking at the paper size and format and a possible multi-column sequence solution to accommodate an increased candidate list. The redesigned ballot paper met voter’s needs in a feedback focus group and confirmed the value proposition of a redesigned ballot paper that is familiar, simpler and fits on the voting desk.
KEYWORDS
South African elections, Human Centered Design (HCD), ballot paper design, empathy.