TOvote: Mobile Voting App
My team and I designed a mobile voting app that enables efficient voting in the Toronto Municipal Election.
My team and I designed a mobile voting app that enables efficient voting in the Toronto Municipal Election.
Voter turnout at the Toronto Municipal Elections has been declining over the past decade, particularly among young adults aged 18 to 30 years old, where voter turnout in the 2020 municipal elections was 20% less than in the provincial elections.
This made us wonder – what factors are driving the decline in young adult civic engagement, and what can be done to address these factors?
Through our research, we learned that the lack of flexibility in voting time and location, the lack of reminders to vote, and the lack of a consolidated source for news on the election were key factors in the decline in young adult voter turnout.
We designed a mobile voting app that addresses the key barriers in the voting process by prioritizing flexible and efficient voting and informed engagement.
I led the UX research for this project: I oversaw interview and survey question development, recruitment, and data analysis. I also collaborated with my team to ideate solutions and develop wireframes and prototypes using Figma. I independently created the hi-fidelity wireframes after the group project.
Use the links below to jump to that section of the project.
First, we wanted to better understand young adult voters' feelings and experiences with voting in the Toronto Municipal Election.
To better understand the decline in voter turnout in Toronto’s municipal elections, we examined two academic papers, six news articles, and a survey analysis.
CBC News. (2021, September 20). GTA voters contend with long lines, missing voter lists as election day draws to a close. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/long-lines-polling-stations-toronto-1.6182540
Chandler, J. (2022, October 18). ‘Vote anywhere, at any time’: What happens when elections move online. TVO Today. https://www.tvo.org/article/vote-anywhere-at-any-time-what-happens-when-elections-move-online
Chughtai, W. (2022, October 21). Online voting is growing in Canada, raising calls for clear standards. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/online-voting-ontario-elections-1.6623659
Elections Canada (2022, June 27). Turnout and reasons for not voting: September 20, 2021, federal election. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=rec/eval/pes2021/rnv&document=index&lang=e
Jones, R. P. (2021, September 12). Here's why you can't vote online in the 2021 federal election. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-voting-federal-elections-1.6168106
LeDuc, L., & Pammett, J. H. (2009). Voter Turnout. In H. MacIvor (Ed.), Election (pp. 251-267). Emond Montgomery.
Ngor, D. (2023, June 20). Toronto’s busy young people need a voting strategy ahead of mayoral election: Advocate. The Toronto Observer. https://torontoobserver.ca/2023/06/20/voting-plan/
Pammett, J.H., & LeDuc, L. (2003). Confronting the Problem of Declining Voter Turnout Among Youth. Electoral Insight, 5(2), 3-8. https://cses.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2003Plenary_IDEA_PammettLeduc.pdf
Warren, M. (2022, October 24). Toronto 2022 municipal election brings dismal voter turnout. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-2022-municipal-election-brings-dismal-voter-turnout/article_f23609f8-2ca0-51f5-a260-f996f08e14d6.html
Our sources attributed the decline in young adult voter turnout to four main factors:
We also examined case studies of online voting in Ontario and other Canadian provinces, which suggested benefits like convenience and accessibility but raised concerns about security and privacy.
We wanted to hear directly from young voters about their experiences voting in the Toronto Municipal Election. To do this, we employed the following methods:
To identify patterns and trends in user experiences with the election – what current barriers and pain points exist to voting in the Toronto Municipal Election?
To understand young voters’ experiences with voting in the Toronto Municipal Election and how it makes them feel about voting.
Eligibility criteria was as follows: 18-30 years old, currently eligible to vote in the Toronto municipal election, has voted in a Toronto municipal election before, and uses electronic devices daily.
It was made known to the interviewers that they were not to bring up any potential solutions (i.e., online voting) to participants unless the participants themselves mentioned these ideas first. The interviewers took written notes of the participants’ responses during their interview discussions.
We received 27 survey responses and conducted 11 semi-structured user interviews. Interview data was analyzed using an affinity diagram to identify major themes, which can be accessed here.
We used Miro to create our affinity diagram.
Four major themes arose from across the interviews and survey:
Participants shared that it was easy to forget to vote, due to busy schedules and the lack of discourse about voting within their social circles.
One interviewee, an undergraduate student with two part-time jobs, shared:
"I literally can’t go to the polling station, because I have classes! Advance polling is during my workday. People like me who are in school and also work don’t vote because they don’t have time to."
Participants described the process of informing themselves before voting as time-consuming and frustrating. One interviewee shared:
"Finding interviews and news for each candidate is frustrating. Busy people won’t have the time to determine this information by themselves."
Participants expressed a willingness to use an online voting system for the Toronto Municipal Election should it be made available.
Several interviewees expressed concerns about the security and privacy of online voting.
We consolidated the main insights from our research to create a Persona that would inform our design decisions going forward.
Name: Vikram
Age: 22
Occupation: 5th year undergraduate student
Vikram (he/him) is a student with a part-time job. Due to his busy schedule, he places high value on convenience and efficiency.
He plans to continue living in Toronto post-graduation and wants to play his part in shaping the city's future. While he is interested inbeing more informed about local politics, he lacks the time and energy for extensive research.
How can we enable voting to be quicker and more convenient than currently available methods, provide voting reminders, and make election information more accessible to voters?
Using Miro, we brainstormed ideas on how to meet Vikram’s needs. After individually voting on the ideas for feasibility and impact, we arranged the ideas on a prioritization matrix to determine which ones to move forward with.
We voted on the feasibility and impact of our ideas (left) then plotted each idea on the prioritzation matrix (right).
We decided to design a mobile voting app that enables voting from any location with internet connection.
We ideated over potential solutions that would meet Vikram’s needs. We used sketches to solidify ideas and draw out how we wanted the interactions to work before proceeding to develop mid-fidelity wireframes.
We drew out our ideas and discussed them as a group.
We created mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma.
Vikram can select and vote for a candidate within the app. He must confirm his choice before the vote is submitted.
A countdown to the election is present on the app's home screen (left image).
Vikram can set custom reminders for voting days by tapping the bell icon.
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Vikram can access consolidated election news from various Canadian news outlets. He can filter and sort the news articles within the News tab.
ID verification will occur prior to voting using government-issued ID, with the option to verify during onboarding.
Biometric data on the device will be used to verify user identity prior to vote submission.
We showed our mid-fidelity prototype to users and made improvements based on their feedback.
To evaluate our design before we developed our hi-fidelity wireframes, we conducted moderated in-person usability tests with five young adults eligible to vote in the Toronto municipal election. Each participant was paired with one member of our team, who facilitated the usability test.
We used the following methods for our tests:
We instructed participants to complete the tasks using an interactive Figma prototype loaded on the facilitator’s mobile device while thinking aloud. This method allowed us to determine common user frustrations and pain points while interacting with the prototype.
After task completion, we conducted an interview. The interview allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the participant’s overall experience with the prototype, and allowed participants to reflect on any frustrating or easy aspects of interacting with the design.
Task 1: complete app onboarding
Task 2: filter news sources to find and read a news article
Task 3: search and vote for a candidate
Main post-test interview questions:
All tasks were completed successfully by all participants. In post-test interviews, all participants described the task of voting as simple and straightforward.
I used feedback from the testing sessions to make the following improvements when I created the hi-fidelity mockups.
3/5 participants expressed the importance of knowing what source their news comes from before selecting a news article to read.
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I included the source name in article preview cards and implemented a filtering option by news source.
4/5 participants found the sort and filter buttons in the news tab confusing in both their appearance and placement.
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I combined the “sort” and “filter” buttons into one workflow.
2/5 participants didn’t realize candidate cards were tappable.
I added visual cues (arrows) to indicate tappable candidate cards. I removed the “vote” button on the candidate card to reduce clutter and to better draw the user's attention to the visual cues.
Vikram needed a quicker and more convenient way to vote, voting reminders, and accessible election information. He has the TOvote app for that!
During the election, go to the voting tab to vote via the app. Vote when you want, where you want.
Set custom reminders for when the voting window opens.
We compile the latest election news from Canadian news outlets so you don’t have to search for them.
Looking back on this project.
We would have liked to design a responsive website version of the app alongside the mobile app to support scalability. In addition, we would have liked to collaborate with cybersecurity experts to refine the app's security measures.
This project marked my first-ever UX project! I'm grateful to have finally experienced what the entire process is like, and I can't wait to work on more projects. Here are my main takeaways from this project:
