Design Research
Project
A research project designed around using multiple research methods and frameworks to try to understand the problem of local government elections having such a poor turnout of voters in New Zealand.
“Local Government is important in our
day-to-day lives, but every election
fewer and fewer people vote.” - Why is this?
Problem
Qualitative Interview
Research Interpretation
Interviews with potential voters were conducted to find commonalities between voters with the problems they encounter with the current local election voting system.
B2/ To find information on candidates there were multiple sites and pages that were disjointed and incohesive.
A4/ No specifics, no unified way of presenting information. Too much information in too many different places. I put it in the “Too hard” basket.
C4/ Trying to decide what each candidate actually thought beyond the big stuff was really hard to find and compare with others. It was a massive chore and I just gave up, then forgot about it.
“Around 3000 people are running for council, more than 200 have promoted false information or conspiracies”
Why do so few people vote in local elections?
LOCAL ELECTIONS 2022August 24, 2022 Emma Vitz
C2/ There was too much information but strangely it was really hard to find.
B4/ The information out there is very poor quality.
B7/ Self-reporting is not a good way of measuring things. Or deciding what is fact or not.
B5/ Who is affiliated with what? Right-wing candidates listed as independent, information is poor and you are left to decide what is what
“There’s ( always ) going to be those nutters with a computer just angrily typing away, pure rage and absolute shit.”
Participant C5/
A7/ No trust in the effectiveness of the local government to do what they say they will do..
B7/ Broadly true but on specifics, I wouldn’t trust them at all.
C8/ There is a big disconnect between the general public and government in general, I think it's a matter of people not caring, don’t have time and people just don’t trust politicians, they lie.
Quantitative Desk
Research Focus Areas
Desk research helped with trying to gain some sort of idea about the initial problem, why fewer people vote in the local elections.
The research turned up 5 key areas which were chosen first to explore, then focus on parts of the research area that were related.
I decided not to focus on what motivates people to vote due to time restraints on the project
People are not as motivated to vote in their local elections as in the general elections
My vote does not make a difference ?
There seems to be no tangible difference between who gets voted in and what happens locally
Having a strong sense of connection and belonging to a community motivates people to vote.
When people are motivated to vote, they overcome the obstacles to vote despite the inconveniences
Some people do not know what their local governments actually do
Local elections don't have the same importance and coverage to them as general elections
The lack of coverage and awareness around local government elections contributes to people feeling disconnected, leading to voter apathy.
Most people didn't look at other resources for candidate information other than the pamphlet because they didn't know where else to look.
Voters don't feel like they know candidates
There is a big disconnect between voter and candidate
There are too many candidates to compare and differentiate between
Having a strong sense of connection and belonging to a community motivates people to vote.
A lack of connection or trust to the wider local or central government was cited as a strong demotivation to vote was mentioned by all participants
People do not trust the information provided
Some people see the voting system as broken and do not trust politicians
People said it was not easy to find information on a candidate and their policies
People found it difficult to compare information about the candidates and their policies?
Most People didn't look at other resources for candidate information other than the pamphlet because they didn't know where else to look
Framing the Problem
Research Interpritation
How to make the process of comparing candidates and their key policy points more unified, less time consuming, more trusted and relatable.
Ideation
Exploring some key ideas and thoughts about how to approach a suggested solution for the problem.
A centralised NZ Government data base of all candidates across the country
Standardisation for all candidate information and policies rather than lots of individual information ports
Could provide a level of trust in information if the government is seen to have a standard system for all candidates nation wide
Filters
Filters could be used for sorting and searching political alignments, political parties and policies
A way to help show which candidate aligns with what is important to the user.
A question based form could be used to quickly find what is important to the user in a candidate or policy
The form could could return the user a ranked list of candidates and policies for consideration
A quick search field that finds and compares information could make the process quicker and easier for people to engage possibly
leading to higher voting turn out
User created shortlists of chosen candidates and or policies
Users would be able to create short lists to save candidates to
shortlists would provide one place to hold all chosen candidates and policies for comparison without having to leave the site / app
Shortlist entries could be ranked showing the top runner for the users vote.
Search by postcode
Quickly show who you can vote for in your local elections
Show polling station locations with information on opening times and how to fill in your ballet.
App Concept
Concept for an official centralised app from the New Zealand Government as one trusted source of information.
Users would be able to search and filter though things that are important to them and see which candidates align with their ideals and needs.
The App could also be used to find out what the users local councils are doing for for them.
Users could create and save shortlists of candidates and policies that they wish to compare.
All candidates will have information cards displaying key policies which have been fact-checked and warnings given when facts may not be correct. Their political careers will also be available to check on their information card.
A standardisation of candidate information and how that information is displayed.
Website Concept
A website portal could facilitate a unified official Governmental place with procedures that all candidates have to go through to register and display their information,
A single official portal would have to be set up.
Currently, any NZ citizen may run as a candidate in local elections, this has the potential to lead to misinformation. It also allows individual candidates to promote themselves and create promotional collateral leading to lots of separate unreliable places to get information.
The voter is then left with the task of collating and comparing candidates. This becomes a chore and leads to disengagement and to the likelihood of the voter actually voting diminishes.
Having all Candidates who wish to run put in all their policies, information including career history would help with standardisation.
Standardisation of information displayed would help the public’s trust in that the information given is correct.
Having a NZ Government backed dedicated site similar to the general election would help raise the level of perceived importance of the local elections.
Having all of the candidate information in one place would also help with the legitimacy of candidate information and policies provided, in turn bolstering public trust.
Further Development
Due to the short time frame of the research project and its breadth as a subject, there would be many areas of further development to explore.
Some more in depth qualitative research interviews would be vital across as many demographics as possible.
Usability testing of wireframes and prototypes to determine how the user flow would work, and whether or not functions are needed and accessible.
It would been great to be able to have talked with the New Zealand government about local voting. Issues with trust are very apparent with not just the information given but whether the local candidate will deliver on key policy details.
Online voting was briefly touched on in the research phase. It would be good to understand what hurdles there are around this and whether people would adopt online voting as safe and trustworthy.
A more in-depth exploration into if and how people would want and use an in app account feature to keep track of candidates and policies to vote on.
There is probably an assumption that an in app account may not be secure from the government gathering personal data.
Talking with past and current candidates to understand better any barriers and concerns they have about the local election system and how they as candidates feel they are perceived within the local community.
Talking with local community projects, clubs, businesses and utility contractors to understand how the local election outcomes affect them which in turn affects the voter’s decision on who to vote for.