Project Activities

September 2013 – Usability in Civic Life joins forces with the Center for Civic Design

July 2012 – Better Designs, Better Elections – A Brennan Center for Justice report

July 2012 – Saving your budget with plain language – IACREOT 2012 keynote on plain language, design, and usability in elections and local government.

June 2012 – When the Audience is Citizens Workshop at UPA 2012 conference.

May 2012 –  Occupy CHI! Engaging U.S. Policy Makers – Whitney joined Janice Tasi, Ben Bederson, Lorrie Cranor and Herb Lin for a panel at CHI 2012. sponsored byt he SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee. Read the extended abstract or download the slides (PDF).

December 2011 – Flash usability test of ranked choice ballots in Oakland and San Francisco.

August 2011 – Design Counts in Elections – EAC Roundtable – Whitney Quesenbery presents on design and plain language.

October 2010 – Flash usability test of double voting on New York City ballots.

September 2008 – Usability testing of ballots in Florida, Nevada, California, New Hampshire, and training in Ohio, Iowa and other states.

July 2008 – Better Ballots published by Brennan Center for Justice. Whitney Quesenbery is a co-author, and project members are on the advisory committee.

April 2008 – Dana Chisnell gives testimony at an EAC Public Meeting.

March 2008 – Josephine Scott and Whitney Quesenbery give testimony at the EAC Roundtable on Usability and Accessibility.

May 2007 – Dana Chisnell conducts first usability training for 70 county local election officals in Washington State.

April 2006 – Ballot usability testing workshop held at Michigan State University Usability & Accessiblity Lab to create a usaiblity test kit for local election officials – the LEO Usability Testing Kit.

August 2005 – Dana Chisnell appointed to the San Francisco Ballot Simplification Committee.

October 2004 – Keynote presentation at MSU Usability and Accessibility Conference.

August 2004 – Ballot Samples Collection project launched, led by Josephine Scott. This material was delivered to the NIST staff in April 2005 to assist with work on standards and ballot design guidance.

July 2004 – Whitney Quesenbery appointed to the EAC Technical Guidelines Development Committee.

June 2004 – Workshop and panel on usability and voting systems at the UPA 2004 Conference.

June 2004 – UPA letter on voting and accessibility to the NY Times

May 2004 – Letter to the Washington Post: ballots can be usable

March 2004 – Josephine Scott and Whitney Quesenbery join the IEEE P1583 Voting System Standards Task Group 3 on usability and accessibility. The work of this task group was incorporated into the EAC voting system guidelines.

December 2003 – NIST Symposium on Building Trust in and Confidence in Voting Systems. Whitney Quesenbery appears on the usability and accessibility panel and gives talk on Starting from People (pdf) – the role of usability in creating better voting systems

September 2003 – UPA supports voting usability and effectiveness in California recall election decision

March 2003 – UPA comments on air travel non-discrimination rule

October 2002 – FEC launches a project to provide usability information about voting systems to augment system standards. Whitney Quesenbery is appointed to the Advisory Council.

November 2001 – Georgia Tech Research Institute symposium on Internet Voting – Whitney Quesenbery is one of three usability experts.

June 2001 – SIGCHI and UPA send a letter to their members urging support of legislation to ensure the usability of voting systems.

November 2000 – UPA press release: Palm Beach Ballot Design Problems Could Have Been Avoided.

November 2000 – Project begins in response to the issues in the 2000 US Presidential election.

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