Overview

Problem: There is no centralized online presence for the Filipino voter’s registration process.

2022 happens to be the year of the 17th Philippine national elections, where the entire country votes on the most important roles in the government including our next president, vice president, and 3-year senatorial slate.

There was plenty of confusion surrounding voter’s registration as citizens scrambled to register amidst the COVID-19 Delta surge. COMELEC, the government body in charge of elections, had no website throughout the entire registration period.

Thus, Filipinos had no official source of voter’s registration information. Most had to resort to social media, blogs, and news websites to find out the proper registration process as well as their personal voter’s information.

Moreover, Filipinos were not offered online alternatives despite pandemic lockdowns. The entire registration process remained face-to-face and checking one’s status involved contacting COMELEC oneself, a tedious and unpredictable task.

Possible solution: A COMELEC website designed solely for the Filipino voter.

This website should:

• Consolidate all the information a Filipino needs to know in order to register for the national elections (both general and personal, e.g. their voter’s status)
• Automate and digitize all of the registration processes, where applicable

A simple yet effective awareness campaign promoting the new website (ex. scannable QR codes in malls) could also ensure a more holistic user journey.

<aside> 🌟 Main Goals for This Project 1. Less guesswork for Filipino voters → eliminate need to search on Google or contact COMELEC 2. Faster and more efficient registration process → increase in registered/reactivated voters through this website*

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Assumptions

• Filipinos will prefer a digital solution

Scope

• Registration
• Reactivation
• Checking Status

Limitations

• COMELEC’s IT proficiency, manpower, and budget to put up the proposed website and continuously run the database are severely constrained
• There are some physical registration steps, such as biometrics, that must be done in person
• We did not include the service of transferring locations due to limited time + scope
• Interviews and tests were conducted with known contacts due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions
• *There is no way to quantify real registration success since the website is a passion project

Project Timeline

This project started as a design challenge for Acumen/IDEO’s Introduction to Human-Centered Design, which I took with my friend Chloe for 3 months*.* For that course, we:

• Conducted user and expert interviews
• Evaluated existing COMELEC solutions as well as looked towards “analogous” solutions for inspiration
• Defined the problem by creating affinity maps, insight statements, and HMW questions
• Made personas, user journeys, and job stories
• Finalized the IA/site map and user flow
• Drafted lo-fi wireframes and a potential UI
• Performed an initial usability test

Chloe and I divided the work equally, assigning different sections from the same task as opposed to doing different tasks separately. I volunteered to spend extra time going over the final user flow and IA, as well as creating the UI/overall branding and website copy.

After the course ended, I continued the project since I saw it had the potential to become a full UX case study. As this was a fun on-and-off extracurricular passion project, this process took around 3 months as well. My remaining tasks included:

• Prototyping
• Another round of usability testing
• Final analysis and recommendations

Tools & Techniques

For brainstorming:

Miro, FigJam, Lucid Chart, and some good old-fashioned sketching ✍🏽

For wireframes and prototyping:

Figma and Adobe CS

For interviewing:

Zoom and Discord

Design Process

Discovery 💡

<aside> 💡 Interview + Affinity Map

1. Due to lack of official information dissemination, Filipinos learn about voter’s registration on their own. For those who do not have time to go through multiple resources, this can be discouraging.
2. Users find in-person registration time-consuming and inefficient. Many would prefer a digital upgrade.
3. There is no feedback whatsoever throughout the entire registration process.

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<aside> 💡 Evaluating Existing COMELEC Solutions The COMELEC website that was belatedly released is more geared towards government employees, not voters. Voters could reactivate their status through email, but this had several pain points such as unpredictable response times, privacy concerns, and lack of feedback.

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<aside> 💡 Looking Towards Analogous Solutions We looked towards other services, like Qatar Airways and GCash, to inform how we can design tracking and identity verification. The voting process in Germany provided guidance for what information we should give the voter (precinct # and polling center).

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