Center for Civic Design

The Center for Civic Design wants every interaction that any citizen has with government to be an easy, effective experience. Our current focus is researching and developing tools for local government officials that help them have the best possible interactions with constituents by and through design. We believe that our skills in usability, information design, and plain language can help improve elections. Our goal can be summed up as: Ensuring voter intent through design. Improve knowledge and understanding of design and usability principles that can make citizens' interactions with government more effective and enjoyable. Ensure that every government official has access to useful, researched guidelines to use in communicating with citizens. Our work on election design includes research, practical projects, knowledge sharing through training, and elections advocacy. We: Conduct research that uses our skills in usability, information design, and plain language to improve elections and other civic information. Partner with officials and other advocacy groups to study any problem through observational research to understand best practices and failures in the current situation and design solutions that work. Publish best practices in formats that will help officials make use of our research knowledge. The Center will continue to create the Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent. These successful publications contain evidence-based tips or guidelines for usability and design issues in voting and elections in an easy-to-digest pocket format.