Election 2000 introductory screen; Flash interactive interface; 1024 x 768px. / 2004

All U.S. citizens are deeply affected—for better or worse—by the president in office. However, very few people know the intricacies of the presidential election process. This is not surprising, as it is super freakin’ complicated. The problem is that most are too jaded to care, even when their country is on the line.

For Interaction Design, one of the Senior year courses in the University of Washington Visual Communication Design program, we were given the task to explain the unexplainable to your average ignorant know-it-all who doesn’t want to be explained to. The aim of this project was to create an interactive interface to help inform the average high-school or university student about the United States presidential election process. As with several classes before, the project was divided into two distinct phases: In the first, we worked in groups to research the process and the various forces involved and brainstormed different interpretations thereof. In the second phase, we set off individually to define and create interactive Flash-based demonstrations of our particular concepts.

I had the good fortune of having three brilliant brains with whom to storm in phase one: Stephanie Cooper, Luke Jung and Tim Turner. As part of our comprehensive research process, we developed various interpretations of how the presidential election could be understood. We first set out to describe the components, both legal and otherwise influential…
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U.S. presidential election variables, influential and legal; digital output; 11 x 8.5in. / 2004

We then divided the country (as elections do so well) to figure out how the importance of different factors were distributed geographically… Read the rest of this entry »