Polite
How can we make politics more accessible to young voters?
Polite is a concept app made to connect people with their legal representatives on a local, state, and national level. The bulk of this project consisted of user research and testing. After getting a grasp on my target demographic and their pain points, the design came pretty seamlessly.
Polite app interface featuring calendar and representative information
Problem
Political Knowledge Gap
Young people don't know much about smaller government operations and are too self-conscious to ask others about it, and seeking help online often leads to a rabbit hole of biased or inaccurate information.
Solution
Simplified Political Connection
Polite, an app that lays out all of your local, state, and federal representatives in office, gives the basics on what they value, and ways you can contact them.
User Research
I surveyed 40 people age 18-24 asking simple questions about their knowledge of the political process and how they consume news to gauge their pain points and needs. The findings revealed significant gaps in political awareness among young adults.
Only 13% of surveyed young adults check the news more than 5 times a week on average
Perhaps the most shocking result - only 10.53% of those surveyed knew who their senators are
Over half would use a mobile app to check news, validating the app-based approach
How often do you check the news?
Do you know who your State Senators are?
How would you check the news right now?
After I was content with my user research, I began working on the architecture based on what I learned. I was slightly nervous at this point because it seemed like the app was going to end up being more complex than I intended, but I ended up being able to keep it relatively simple in its final build.
Information architecture and user flow mapping
Design Evolution
Originally planned on the visuals to take on a fun and illustrative style to attract a younger demographic, but after talking to users I realized they were more interested in it being to the point and not distracting.
Early sketches exploring different visual approaches
Personalized for the User
The Polite signup process asks simple, non-intrusive questions to determine who the user's representatives are & if they align with their beliefs.
Easy Information Access
The home screen is a simple hub displaying all of the user's representatives, with links to that rep's individual page, the calendar page, and profile page.
