Local Elections Website Template

Many counties in the U.S., especially those that are smaller or under-resourced, have election websites with poor UX and accessibility issues — or lack websites altogether. Several years ago the Center for Tech and Civic Life identified this as an urgent need: election offices needed access to better tools to create user-friendly, accessible websites. These county-level sites are a critical resource for election information and a key tool in our democracy.

When CTCL and USDR partnered on this project, an existing template built years earlier on Google's Blogger platform needed a full overhaul — both the technical platform and the UX. The original wasn't mobile-friendly, had significant accessibility issues, confusing information architecture, and a dated aesthetic. We also wanted to simplify the backend admin experience so election officials could launch with little-to-no IT support.

The new template was a complete redesign focused on mobile-first UX, web accessibility in accordance with WCAG, and an official but approachable and clean aesthetic.

The approach to content organization and information architecture is based on years of research by the Center for Civic Design on how voters access information online. It empowers counties to keep voters informed with up-to-date information regardless of their device or accessibility needs.

We launched our first implementation in August 2020 with pilot partner Inyo County, CA, and launched four more sites before the November 2020 election.

We needed a flexible, modular design system with components that could be used in various configurations to organize pages and content categories that differ by state and county.

I created a simple tile navigation system with bold icons and labels. This formed the main layout for the site homepage, but could be reused throughout other pages to keep child pages and related content organized intuitively for voters scanning for a specific topic. The Voting page was one example where tile navigation was reused to organize a large amount of information about voting methods and resources.

The template also included example pages and components: a simple table layout, an expandable FAQ component, and an easy-to-use contact form on the About Us page that helped election officials better manage inbound voter questions.

I created a design system with a modern and friendly aesthetic that still felt official, professional, and born-in-the-USA without going overboard on traditional red, white, and blue.

While crafting the palette, I realized that a bit of extra effort to create two slightly different color themes would give election offices the customization they wanted. It was important to provide a lightweight way for administrators to put their own stamp on their site, so we offered two color themes, a range of homepage banner backgrounds, and a set of homepage illustrations to choose from.

I also created a library of election-themed icons for the site's navigation tiles. The icons quickly became one of the most loved parts of the template — counties asked for the entire downloadable set so they could use them in print materials and other applications beyond the website.

In creating their homepages, election officials have mix-and-match options across the two color themes and the different illustrations. This provided flexibility to help them communicate key information for their own state and county-specific use cases.

• Election Tech That's Super Simple The New York Times

  "An election information website that's as easy to use as your favorite shopping site."

• Yes, the lines are long. But voting is actually easier than ever Fast Company

  "Local election jurisdictions are answering voters' questions online through beautiful new websites based on a simple WordPress template developed by U.S. Digital Response in partnership with the Center on Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Civic Design."