Accessible Elections Design Workshops
The accessible voting workshops focused on the design of voting equipment, pre-election and on-site information, polling space, and absentee ballots to make the voting experience more accessible to people with disabilities. The workshops aimed to create new concepts for accessible elections that can be developed further in the second phase projects of the Accessible Voting Technology Initiative.
The workshops were structured as a series of group design activities that allowed participants to:
- Gather input for a broad view of accessibility needs and desires
- Look for opportunities for voting technology redesign and enhancements
- Collaborate with people from other stakeholder groups to find a common understanding
- Identify and explore new ways to make elections accessible
Workshop materials and reports
Catalog of the design concepts from both workshops
Summary of Workshop 1: January 25-26, 2012
Summary of Workshop 2: February 22-23, 2012
Photographs of the events on Flickr
About the workshops
These participatory design workshops, were held on January 25-26 and February 22-23, gathered input, insights and ideas, and use them to brainstorm problems and solutions. revising and refining them through group exercises.
The 32 participants for each workshop included a mix of stakeholders, ensuring a broad set of perspectives:
- People with disabilities and accessibility advocates
- Election officials, election workers, and other experts
- Voting technology experts and voting system designers
- Designers from technology, interaction, information, usability, graphics, mobile devices, architecture
The workshops were facilitated by staff and students from the Georgia Tech Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) including Claudia Rebola, Jon Sanford, and Karen Milchus.
Blog posts about the workshops
Accessibility of Elections – Jared Marcotte, Voting Information Project
Drew Davies participates in Accessible Voting Technology Workshop – Drew Davies, Oxide Design Co
Christopher Hart participates in accessible voting technology workshop at Georgia Tech – Institute for Human-Centered Design