The interactive designers at The New York Times do a great job at getting readers to have more interaction with the the articles. One great example is the “How Design Can Save Democracy” Article. My reaction to this is, “Of course this is a better solution, we would be dumb not to use it”.

Well, unfortunately, not everyone thinks that way, especially those in elections. I am lucky enough to know someone that has done a lot of work with elections and current works in an elections department and she had a similar reaction to mine (she realizes the importance of design). Of course, when she showed it to her colleagues, they didn’t see the problem. Not everyone has an eye for design, but when comparing the two designs together, how could you not see the issue. Couldn’t past election issues also sound the alarm that something needs to change.

Well done AIGA and I fulling support the Design for Democracy program.

On Nov. 4, most ballots will repeat design mistakes made in previous elections. Many of these errors are avoidable. This year, the United States Election Assistance Commission released ballot design guidelines. Using these guidelines, we at AIGA developed this feature to identify common design problems and offer improvements. Related Blog Post