InfoD-Cafe: Stupid Voters

[Karen Schriver]

Hello Everyone,

I apologize to those who also read the Association of Teachers of 
Technical Writing (ATTW) list, but I decided to cross-post this note 
because it presents a timely example of how people in our 
field--whether we call ourselves information designers, document 
designers, or technical communicators--tend to be largely invisible 
to the publics that need our help.

With Election Day in the US just a week away, it's no surprise to see 
a flurry of news stories on the voting process. I'm writing to relate 
a story that reinforces what a number of people on this list have 
argued over the years; that is, we information designers need to make 
our field and its perspective more visible to the general public. 
About a week ago, a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel asked Tim 
Shanahan (from the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for the 
Study of Literacy) and me to evaluate the quality of this year's 
Florida ballots, county by county. (You'll recall that Florida was 
the site of heated debate in 2000 regarding butterfly ballots, 
hanging chads and such.) This year county officials redesigned many 
of the paper and electronic ballots. Each county is permitted to do 
its own design thing; there are only a few rules, e.g., no butterfly 
ballot designs, no typography under 10 points, and no list of 
candidates for the same office spread over two columns. Most tend to 
use the familiar "fill-in the oval" design, while some use what is 
called the "broken arrow" design--a weird strategy where voters must 
connect two ends of an arrow. If you haven't seen it, check out at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9469612.htm

Let's hope the counties that use the broken arrow strategy aren't 
setting us up for another election meltdown next week. Our evaluation 
was focused only on the paper ballots and I assessed them in ways you 
might expect: integration of writing, design, and typography. I was 
especially concerned with rhetorical moves that influence 
comprehensibility, usability, trust, and persona. The reporter 
summarized Shanahan's and my evaluations, interviewed us, and 
supplemented the info we gave him with interviews from various 
election officials.

I was pleased that the reporter seemed genuinely interested in what 
citizens need and expect in the writing and design of a ballot. But I 
was surprised that despite these interests, he seemed not to have 
heard of document design, information design, or technical 
communication. I tried to weave ideas about our field into the 
interview he conducted, but only a trace of this discussion made it 
into print. The main point of the story was to characterize what was 
worse, what was the same, and what was better about the ballots 
between 2000 and 2004. In addition to the points the reporter 
summarizes about the ballot designs, he makes the nice point that the 
writing and design of ballots should not make voting a de facto 
literacy test.

At the end of the article, he quotes a Florida elections supervisor, 
who makes a mean-spirited remark about "stupid people" who 
vote--arguing that no matter how good the redesign, they (those 
stupid people) won't mark it right. Cynical comments like these make 
me believe that every time one of us has the chance to articulate the 
needs of citizens, we should. There are too many of these public 
officials who pollute the air with their snide remarks and who blame 
the general public for not knowing what to do when confronted with 
their atrocious writing and design.

If you'd like to read the story, see the following:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asecballot23102304oct23,1,5704862.story

If that doesn't work, try:

OrlandoSentinel.com

You may have to register to read the story, but it is free. Type in 
the keywords: Jeff Kunerth (that's the reporter's name). The story is 
from Saturday October 23, 2004: "Counties try to work out kinks: 
Formats are clearer but still have problems, experts say." You can 
look at a sample of the "before" and "after" ballots by clicking on 
the right-hand column under the blue heading "graphics."

karen schriver
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