Center for Civic Design
Summary
The Center for Civic Design is a US nonprofit that focuses on the UX/UI of voting — ballot design, voter instructions, polling-place signage, registration forms. Coined the “Making Voting Easier” research program with state and county election officials.
Body
The Center for Civic Design is a US nonprofit that focuses on the UX/UI of voting - ballot design, voter instructions, polling-place signage, and registration forms - and runs the Field Guides to the Civic User Experience series used by election administrators [source: center-for-civic-design]. The Center coined the Making Voting Easier research programme, which pairs UX research with field testing in actual elections with state and county election officials; its design research has produced guidelines that have demonstrably reduced ballot-completion errors and improved usability for voters with disabilities and voters with limited English proficiency [source: center-for-civic-design]. The Center’s outputs include field-tested design templates and a Field Guide to the Civic User Experience used by election administrators in US and international contexts [source: center-for-civic-design].
Coverage spans the full chain of election materials: ballot layout, voter instructions, polling-place signage, registration forms, accessibility provisions, multi-language support, and the audit trail of how voters actually navigate the polling place [source: center-for-civic-design]. The Center’s research combines usability methods (gaze tracking, completion-time measurement, error-rate analysis) with field testing in real precincts, which is what makes their guidelines actionable for election officials rather than theoretical [source: center-for-civic-design]. The work has been adopted in redesign programmes at state and county levels in the United States and has been cited internationally by election-management bodies [source: center-for-civic-design].
A campaigner reaches for it when citing UX-rigorous evidence on ballot and election-material design in a litigation or regulatory context, or when advocating for design improvements in election administration [source: center-for-civic-design]. The Center’s research findings are usable as expert-witness material in voting-rights cases and as the basis for redesign grant narratives. Treat as link-only. [source: center-for-civic-design]
Use it for
Citing UX-rigorous evidence on ballot and election-material design; advocating for design improvements in election administration.