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User Experience Project:

Updating VFA for the 2022 Midterms�

Absentee ballots to Vote in U.S. Elections

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Changing Environment

Midterms 2022: world will be back to work
Consumer expectations are based on their day-to-day eCommerce activities
VFA currently makes unnecessary demands on voters

VFA now needs to be a self-guided experience to provide complete voting support to all voters

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VFA is more than just voter registration; �we have become a source of information for ballot return as well

VFA now needs to be a self-guided experience to provide complete voting support to all voters

�

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Next Steps:

IT feasibility
Final design and edit
Legal clearance
Testing�

Where we left off last time was that we would meet with IT to agree together a workable plan to improve VFA. Shari and her team have worked together with Dan, Michael, Heidi, Alyson and myself to go through in detail the structure of the website. Alex Montgomery has been involved as have the new team of VFA IT volunteers to help make the necessary changes.

We have agreed as a joint team that the timing will be to finalise the build and design of the new aspects over the next few months, test and get ready for a March 2022 launch. Although we had hoped to be ready by January 2022, this is not feasible given our volunteer resources. However we are not worried about the slight lag--DA’s push in January 2022 is 100% for voters abroad to compete and return an FPCA. The current website is spectacular at doing that. We have been able to make some minor changes to improve it further with input we have received over the past 6-8 months from all our volunteers around the world. The improvements that this project will make are to broaden VFA capabilities beyond just the FPCA.

The next step for us was to develop the design ideas to demonstrate the new look of VFA. Today I am going to show you our recommendation. We are asking for your approval to move forward with this design by purchasing some stock images so that the tech team can incorporate all the work into their schedule.

Others will discuss at a subsequent meeting the legal clearance issues and the testing plan and schedule.

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Our audience is any US voter who lives abroad.

-Most are very disengaged from the

process

-Many don’t understand the process and

only do this once every two or four years.

As a reminder, when we are looking at any of the communications and visuals that are being designed for an audience, we have to remember that WE ARE NOT THE AUDIENCE. Our friends, leaders and supervolunteers at DA are not the primary audience. We all know too much. We must all think of our least politically-engaged friend, in my case a long time friend, Christine. Christine has lived abroad for 25 years and only votes because I tell her to. I can occasionally talk her into staffing a VR table.

Or consider my friend Jenny (from Iowa), whose son will be a study abroad student in Brazil this autumn. It’s his first time abroad and he is very excited to experience life in another country.

The point? Both of these voters do not know or remember much about voting in the USA, and they need the easiest process we can make for them for them to overcome what they think are considerable hurdles to sending in a successfully counted ballot.

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What we want our audience to think:

-Vote From Abroad is the best source of voting information for US citizens living overseas. It is the most knowledgeable, easy-to-use, up-to-date and trustworthy resource that can help me go all the way to returning a counted ballot.

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A quick reminder of where we are now: The user is directed to register to vote by clicking on the start button, although they may actually be looking for different information--registration, ballot location, ballot return questions, eligibility to vote questions, etc.

Again, we know that voters need many kinds of information, not just an FPCA. So we are recommending a change in the visual presentation of the website: one that encompasses the new positioning of being the best solution for all our audiences’ voting needs.

We have opted for a simple illustration style versus photography. Many consumer efforts involve photography, and illustrations are a way to bring our website to life, add a distinctive, fresh look & individuality which encourages a greater level of engagement. The style is simplistic and the color palette soothing to further ensure an easy user journey and site experience.

The theme is POWER TO THE PEOPLE. There is nothing more powerful in a democratic system than its people and their votes. This concept depicts a multitude of characters representing our diversity.

The images presented today are For Position Only we will be curating the final selections and sharing with ExCom. Our goal is to secure approvals to proceed along this path and secure illustration usage rights.

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We start with a refreshed home page--the existing logo remains a familiar tie to the old website and all our current visual communications. We are discussing the best way to transition to the new look, while reassuring voters that they are in the right place--as we directed them there as recently as January, we want to make it clear that after several years of the same look, we are the same trusted source. Perhaps the balloon visual from the current website floats away to reveal the new page. Perhaps we have a concentrated comms campaign to communicate our new look and updated, easier-to-use experience.

As the website will launch in the middle of primary season, it also gives us an opportunity to remind voters to check us out, and while they’re there, check out their state’s information and see what questions they may have already about the midterm elections.

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Today: Approval to move ahead with the visual direction presented.

Need: Approximately $550-600 to purchase stock images to continue to develop the website to meet the March 2022 launch deadline