Gizmodo recently posted news about an android application that enables drivers to augment what they see from the car with turn-by-turn directions. Cool application, but in an era where we may already have too many driving distractions, it got me thinking about the relationship of information and technologies to automotive experiences.
PART 1: Defining Auto-Mobile
Mobility
As far as we can remember, the notion of ‘mobility’ has meant transportation from A to B. Transportation via foot, train, car, and airplane fulfilled a desire to connect the world of people and information. And the desire for better and faster mobility has led to the invention of the internet, mobile phone, and social networking services. Today, ‘mobility’ no longer solely represents the idea of transportation. It is now about the freedom of accessing information and an ability to communicate to whomever,whenever. Information in this mobile form has enabled a complex network of geographical and social communication channels that distribute an overwhelming amount of information, data and interactions between people. For example, powered by mobile devices like the iPhone, Twitter has been used to spread breaking news and receive updates from field reporters and public observers. This living stream of information and how we are connected to it is something that we can no longer avoid or ignore. Today we live mobile lives, always connected to information.
Automobile
Now, let’s talk about cars and mobility. What does the automobile mean to people today? The word automobile comes from combining Greek word “auto” meaning self and Latin word “mobils” meaning moving. Literally translated, it means to move itself. Within the context of the modern definition of ‘mobility’, an automobile should not only move itself physically, but offer a way of moving our ‘connected’ life style and information. Automobiles are often a catalyst for bringing new technologies into the mass market. In its effort to offer the best at-wheel experience, a modern automobile is equipped with numerous sensors and gadgets. At its best, a modern automobile offers a level of connection and integration by supporting portable and wireless devices. Moreover, the connection to external data via GPS/satellite assists the driver to stay on route with updated information such as traffic condition. But these technologies don’t quench the driver’s thirst for seamless integration like they’ve learned to expect from a mobile phone or the internet. Safety concerns limit the access to various types of information at the wheel. But it is still tempting to send text message, talk on the phone, or watch a favorite movie from the laptop mounted to the dashboard while driving. These behaviors demonstrate that consumers desire a connected lifestyle in an automobile, even though it means jeopardizing their safety. The automotive industry clearly has a challenge to meet these demands with the highest priority in safety.
Recent innovation in the mobile phone market has introduced many new ideas around user input mechanisms (e.g. touch and speech), UI model, as well as output (e.g. new types of displays and audio).
When designing digital products, it is important to find the right balance between these three aspects. This might seem somewhat obvious, but most of the newer mobile phones have not done this well. Many companies just slap on touch, rather than designing the touch user experience from the ground up.
To understand this we have to take look at products where touch technology has been used for a long time; public vending machines. People that need to be able to buy tickets on vending machines range from 8 year olds to 80 year olds. That is why the design of the user interface for these products requires extra attention. Users should be able to use the product quickly without any prior training. When you walk up to the device it is immediately clear what the steps are; select your destination, select the type of ticket, and pay. This is called a “walk-up-and-use” interface.
Here you see an example of one of these ticket vending machines for the Dutch Railways. There also is an online demo of this walk-up-and-use user interface. http://webdemo.ns.nl/webdemo.e2000/
Touch screens are a great match to the walk-up-and-use interface model. After all, all complexity is removed, because there is no separation between the screen and the input, as you have with a d-pad, mouse, or hardware buttons.
Choosing for a touch screen (at least on a small screen) indirectly forces simplification of user interface. By requiring larger target sizes (since our finger tips are larger than mouse pointers), there is room for fewer objects and controls on the screen. Designers have to think even more carefully about how to use the precious screen “real estate” so as not to overcrowd the interface. The user has to be 100% clear about what will happen when they actually touch the screen.
Essentially the iPhone is designed as a walk-up-and-use interface as well. Everything is only a couple of taps away, only the most important functionality is included, everything you can do is clearly visible on the screen and screens have clear instructions and most icons have labels for what they mean and do. Also the multi touch functionality for things like scaling and scrolling becomes obvious once you understand the capabilities.
In addition a large screen, with a high resolution, accommodates for large hit areas and labels in a small font.
There are disadvantages with this user interface model as well. Although everyone can use and learn the functionality quickly, there is not much room for users to get better in a skill and acquire a certain level of mastery. Also, the walk-up-and-use UI model is not the only model that can be paired with a touch user interface. Sometimes it is the design goal is to create an element of discovery in the user experience, for example in games. In this case it might be desirable to choose a UI model that encourages exploration, rather than ease of use.
When considering some of the other mobile products that have come out recently, there is not such a logical partnership between the input mechanism (touch) and the user interface model and the output. For example:
Windows Mobile 6 phones, for example from HTC, utilize several different input methods, ranging from d-pad, stylus to touch. The user interface model needs to accommodate all these different inputs. Windows Mobile phones are originally based on the desktop metaphor (i.e. start button and windows with close boxes). Users have to switch input type as well as mental model when using different functionality throughout these products.
The Blackberry Storm essentially is not that much different from other Blackberries, except touch was added to it. Blackberries are devices where efficiency is important. It is okay for users to invest in learning the system in order for them to become more efficient. Once you have invested this time, you don’t want to relearn everything when you upgrade to the Storm. So RIM decided to stick to many of the intricacies of the Blackberry UI model, but then also add touch.
RIM did add an innovative input mechanism to the device called ClickThrough. There is a distinction between touching the screen and actually pressing down on the screen. However they only use it to make typing feel more natural. There is a missed opportunity to align this input method with an efficient UI model. For example they could have used touch for the primary action (open) and press down for other contextual options (copy, share, etc.).
The T-mobile G1 is specifically designed with touch in mind. However it is essentially a desktop computer with touch. It included many PC concepts, such as a desktop and menus where all the commands are hidden from view.
Nokia also had a lot of UI legacy that they need to reconcile with their d-pad designs. Nokia’s phones (for example the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) often have obscure icons with no labels, which requires users to learn them first. This might be fine when your phone has a d-pad and you get a tooltip that explains the icon, but for touch you need to understand it before you tap it. The same applies to Palm Pre.
In conclusion the careful balance between input, UI model and output is essential for any design. Although touch is trendy, it will only get you so far. When you do not design a user experience from the ground up, with touch in mind, you will only scratch the surface of what touch has to offer.
If you’ve ever been curious about what the future may hold, check out the video Microsoft Office Labs released titled “2019.” You’ll find a technological utopia using some of today’s technology being applied in everyday settings. The production value of the video rivals that of many Hollywood films, and it certainly makes the point clear that this stuff can be a reality. Stephen Elop presented the montage at the Wharton Business Technology Conference highlighting key technologies including: advanced home networking, surface computing, modal devices and real time interactive classrooms to name a few.
How will emerging technology improve our productivity in the years ahead? What opportunities will arise from evolving trends and global change? Microsoft has collaborated with customers, partners, and thought leaders across multiple disciplines to develop scenarios that explore how long-term trends, customer challenges, and emerging technologies might converge to improve our lives, both at work and home.
Video montages are always exciting to watch and helps fuel the thinking on better experiences. What do you think? 10 years? Will we see this? or will we experience something more along the lines of Blade Runner?
Can you believe it’s been 10 years since we’ve been ‘Googling’? And longer that we’ve been using other, basically identical, search engines. For the most part these search engines have done just what we expect them to do… providing us with a virtual card catalog of the millions of websites out there. I mean really… what would we do without them?
It’s curious though, that while we hear so much about the ‘Search Wars’ they have all pretty much remained the same. Sure, there have been a few minor advancements such as location based search, but compare that to the evolution that we’ve seen in other areas. I mean think about it… 10 years ago we didn’t have iPods, there wasn’t an xbox (let alone a wii!), we didn’t all carry around cell phones (let alone have constant internet access on them!), we didn’t ‘post our status’ or join the ‘People who hate Cilantro’ group on facebook (which by the way, I didn’t since I actually love Cilantro). But we were surfing the ‘information superhighway’ and clicking on those blue links… those same blue links that we are still clicking on now.
A few months ago I worked on a project for Microsoft’s Strategic Prototyping Group. I worked on the design for a ‘Synoptic Learning’ demo centered on showing exploration of the human body in 3D. It was built to be shown by Craig Mundie to several universities to get students excited about being a part of the future of technology.
The demo starts off with a (simulation) of Craig taking a picture of his hand with a Tablet PC. The system then ‘recognizes’ his hand as ‘a human hand’ and displays it on the screen. Once recognized you can: switch between different views such as the skeletal system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, etc.. It reacts to multi-touch gestures for zooming and panning to explore other areas of the body at both a macro and micro level. For whatever part of the body is showing on the screen, it displays ‘markers’, placed at very specific locations, for example, the brain, the heart, of even a particular synapse if zoomed in really far. Upon clicking or touching one of these markers, a panel is displayed showing information. Information from the internet, hilightling particularly relevant sources such as friends, professors, classmates, etc. (in the demo scenario the simulation was to show how a student might use this for both school and lifelong learning). So why is that relevant? Well… it’s all really just about new ways to explore and search for more relevant information via an experience that’s more rich and compelling.
The Search experience is going to evolve dramatically in the next 10 years… much more so than it has in the last 10. This will happen because of several factors. First off, business… Advertisers want more value from their ad money and will demand that the ‘right people’ see their ads. Secondly, content overload… there is just so much more data out there (and so much more that is particularly relevant to each of us including social media), that Search providers will have to find new and better ways to filter out the junk and deliver the good stuff. Lastly, because we will finally be able to deliver a richer presentation of data through new technologies such as Silverlight.
The Hex project that we did for Microsoft is just one of many examples of innovations in this area. Worldwide Telescope, a project we worked on for Microsoft last year, is another example of a new way to explore information. We’ve also been working on other ‘Search’ projects that really rethink the experience… ones that offer you better and more personalized content by better understand your intent. Ones that let you explore beyond the obvious to discover new content that you are likely interested in. Really, I think we are going to see a large variety of solutions… different ways to explore and visualize this information from rich 3D interfaces to more traditional, each offering a solution uniquely appropriate for the task. Users will be able to choose the best search experience to address their particular need. One thing I know… they probably won’t choose those same old static blue links.
The #1 winner is: Barnes & Noble! This is great information if you were ever curious about leading brands in their respective industries. Check it out!
This might remind you of Microsoft’s Photosynth, but the concept is slightly different. Adobe blends images that are compositional, and semantically (tagged) related and stitches them into an endless canvas. The photos that are stitched together therefore don’t need to be of the same object in the way Photosynth was implemented. However, Photosynth does allow you to create 3D objects and pivot around it in space.
Infinite Images takes any collection of tagged images, not necessarily from the same location at all, and stitches them together in 3D by analyzing their composition and the semantics of their tags (“sky” is above “ground,” for example).
MINI Cooper has just released a new advertisement that uses AR technology. People can see a full 3D models of a MINI on their computer screen using a web cam and IE. (ActiveX required)
We are no strangers to touch based interactions, or pen-based either, so it’s great to see Johnny Lee and others continue pushing the development of the perfectly useful input method.
a new application that runs on Google Android - lets you view the world through Wikipedia-tinted glasses. Simply point your mobile device’s camera at your surroundings and Wikitude will display an augmented reality version of it on the screen - a version complete with information about the buildings and other landmarks you can see, sourced directly from Wikipedia!
We have been informed a few of our interviews have been posted on PC Magazine and Wireless Week. Martijn Van Tilburg and Sabrina Boler were asked to share their thoughts on the advancement of touch based interfaces for mobile and in general use. Articles can be found below:
The Age of Touch Computing: A Complete Guide Touch computing-which started with the iPhone and is now making its way to your desktop-will change computing paradigms, at least for the most common PC tasks.
Q&A: Sabrina Boler, Touch UI Designer Sabrina Boler is a design director at interface design company Artefact Group. We interviewed her to find out about the current state of touch interfaces, and what UI designers think may come next.
Thinking Through UIs How can developers create good user interfaces when the world around them keeps changing? There are a few simple strategies to follow, but there are no guarantees.
“In the year 2004, the next presidential campaign after this one, you will find, in my opinion, the vast majority of states will already have Internet voting.”
– John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, Inc. (January 20, 2000)
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
– Thomas Jefferson
I don’t mean to disparage Mr. Chambers. Though, in retrospect, it’s pretty funny to think that he may have actually believed we’d soon be voting online, less than 10 months before what happened in Florida in 2000. The point I want to make is that predicting the future is no simple task! Please note also that he made this prediction at a Brookings Institution symposium several weeks before the dot-com bubble burst.
Speaking of bygone eras, our recent November 4th election marked the end of another era. In Washington state, it signaled the end of polling places. All future elections, until further notice, will be mail by vote only, using paper ballots to be counted by optical scan machines. I talked to a number of voters outside the Madrona School in Seattle on Election Day, and many of them expressed profound sadness that the public experience of voting was coming to an end. They had taken their children with them to show them something they might never see again.
Farewell to Polls 2008: I voted!
It’s also soon to be the end of the Bush era and finally time, as many frustrated Americans have expressed, for the 21st century to begin. We’ve already seen President-elect Obama take an incredibly proactive approach in preparing his transition team to hit the ground running in January. We all know he’s got a whole lot on his plate, but after a decisive victory on Election Night, with no major systemic disasters occurring, few people are probably thinking much about the problems with our voting systems.
However, the system itself is still far from perfect and still susceptible to breakdowns and failures. Will voting machines and standards for approving and testing them be a top priority for government in the coming months? Will Election Day administration improve so voters don’t stand in line for hours? What other parts of the larger voting experience will be addressed now that there is time and attention to devote to it? Is there even the political will to do so?
What can we expect to be different by the 2010 midterms? And what will the 21st century voting experience be like in 20 years?
We believe that in 2028, paper ballots will still be in use (in some places, for some voters, and for some situations). But, that doesn’t mean things won’t be a whole lot different too…
Why would we still be using paper you may be asking incredulously? For the time being, the vast majority of voting system, computer science, and security experts agree that paper ballots with precinct count optical scanning is the best option we have. Such a system balances the needs for security, speed, accuracy, cost, and voter confidence since the ballot becomes a verifiable paper trail, a physical “backup.”
Professor Andrew Appel of Princeton University has said, “the ‘best’ voting system, whether it’s computerized or something else entirely, is the one that balances three key features: security, accountability, and public trust.”
The ideal voting system must balance these three features.
One of our big problems is that we Americans love speed and convenience so much. It’s practically a cultural obsession. Some experts — like Appel and cryptography and security expert Bruce Schneier, for example — would argue that our rush to increase the speed of elections (in order to scale to 130 million voters or more) has come at the expense of security and accuracy, which of course ultimately undermines public trust.
Even our so-called “news” organizations (the most notable exception, perhaps, being The New York Times) appeared to be in a ratings race on Election Night to call the contest first (remember the news organizations calling the election prematurely multiple times in 2000?). Nobody actually wants to wait for the counting to finish… we must be the first to call it! And with a holographic anchorwoman!
Taking Professor Appel’s three system features and the system diagram from the last post, the key is to think of the voting experience as a large, complex process involving many entities interacting over a protracted period of time starting long before Election Day — not just a brief transaction between a voter, a ballot, and a machine.
In this larger process, the most serious problem is widely regarded to be voter registration, and we’ll see that it will be one of the first major areas to be reformed. So, on that note, let’s move on to our predictions for the future…
The next five years:
1. The private vendors producing voting systems will continue to focus on marketing their optical scanning machines to election officials. Don’t expect a lot of new DRE systems to be developed and sold by this current crop of vendors. They will not be investing heavily in R&D, and while standards remain voluntary it is doubtful they will be doing a whole lot of testing and improving of current DRE equipment lines. It just ain’t worth it to them. Like one analyst said when Diebold changed the name of its election systems subsidiary to Premier Election Solutions, it was responsible for “5 percent of revenue and 100 percent of bad public relations.” And from state and local election officials’ point of view, there’s a pretty strong cost argument against touch screen DRE machines, which require more machines per voter than paper ballot and optical scan systems, with the additionally “expensive” risk of looking bad if something goes wrong.
2. The voter registration system will be overhauled to fit the needs of a modern and mobile society, early voting will be expanded, and more states considering new equipment will move to optical scan systems. Some of these states will become mail-in only. In terms of the voter registration issue, it could be a challenging and lengthy ordeal in the Congress since there’s the thorny issue of stepping on states’ toes, but in the end universal voter registration will become law, and eligible voters will be automatically registered, even when they move. Lawsuits and frustrations in dealing with third-party organizations submitting voter registration applications will be greatly reduced. Early voting will become available in all 50 states, not only providing voters with more convenience, but also distributing the load on the system and providing more opportunities to test the system and iron out potential complications as they occur.
3. Starting with the Obama administration (hopefully), we will see the beginning of a shift in culture toward listening to all sides of an issue; greater openness to the public, academic, and private spheres participating in and being heard by government; more cooperation and collaboration between all of these parties; and increased transparency of this process and its inner workings. This will lead to a better, multidisciplinary approach to standards development. But, government is slow. “The problem is that the pace of innovation is outstripping the pace of regulation,” says Doug Chapin, director of the Web site set up by Pew Center on the States, electionline.org. Expect the seeds to be planted, but the plant to take more time to flourish and bloom.
4. Along with greater transparency in government, we will see continued grassroots and community-based “policing,” documenting, and reporting of the election process on blogs, wikis, video sites, and other Internet destinations. This form of public oversight of the process will complement and even become a resource for state and election officials, who will be held accountable for overseeing the process, adhering to standards, protecting voters’ rights, and administering elections efficiently.
5. Congress will eventually create better and mandatory standards and guidelines for the development, testing, certification, design, and usability of voting systems and ballots. There will be actual oversight, enforcement, and accountability. Public watchdog groups will also participate in making sure that local and state election officials, voting system manufacturers, and others involved in either implementing or undermining the system are monitored by the public. Whoever ends up design and developing software for voting systems will have to open up their code to public scrutiny. As Bruce Schneier writes, ”computerised systems with these characteristics won’t be perfect — no piece of software is — but they’ll be much better than what we have now. We need to treat voting software like we treat any other high-reliability system. The auditing that is conducted on slot machine software in the US is significantly more meticulous than that applied to voting software. The development process for mission-critical airplane software makes voting software look like a slapdash affair. If we care about the integrity of our elections, this has to change.”
6. Voters will organically build communities, social networks, and devise new forms of civic engagement in the election process, particularly as the voting system itself becomes more “offsite,” rather than in polling places. Voluntary public gatherings, celebrations, and public multimedia installations will document, capture, and visualize the democratic process unfolding in real time, from the moment the candidates declare their candidacies through to the moment the votes are counted.
Within a decade:
7. Over the next decade, expect there to be major efforts to improve and expand eGovernment, including better integration of the hundreds of services provided by government. Databases and voter rolls will be cleaner, more accurate, and better synchronized. With a national chief technology officer, active citizen involvement, and the philosophies of openness and transparency, government websites and services will improve. Government will be more connected and integrated, and as a result will be more responsive and more effective. Tim O’Reilly believes that “there will be significant investment in applying the lessons learned from internet campaigning into the tools of internet governance. There are efforts already underway to build better tools for two-way communication, for government transparency, and for harnessing innovations from outside the public sector to improve the work of the public sector.”
8. Government will harness the collective intelligence of citizens in other ways as well. Crowdsourcing and open innovation methods, like government-sponsored contests (think the Ansari X Prize for voting machines), will lead to healthy competition among private companies, individuals, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits. This will help lead the way to Internet-based voting systems that are cryptographically secure, visually-intuitive, beautifully and effectively designed, and adaptive to different voter needs. Natural user interfaces will allow individuals to vote through a combination of physical gestures with their hands, eye-tracking, or voice commands. For the physically challenged, other input methods will also be supported. Don’t be surprised either if innovations in voting systems come from the outside, possibly even from unexpected sources or places (like India, which is the largest democracy in the world and already uses more than 1 million electronic voting machines in its elections). The advances in security, technology, and design made by these diverse sources will result in some initial large scale deployments of Internet voting. At first, Internet voting will be administered only at specific, smaller locations where it can be carefully monitored. With time, improvements will be made and problems will be addressed. Authentication of voters and determining their eligibility will have challenges that will have to be ironed out. Biometrics may be used for “signing in,” but the public will need time to grow comfortable with the idea. Voting from mobile or remote Internet devices will not happen in this timeframe, but with enough success could become available within twenty years. Be assured, however, that along with expanded early voting, more options will be available to voters on how they vote in order to meet the diverse needs of a populace in an increasingly complex world.
9. Real standards which stand up to the demands of our most knowledgeable security, technology, and design experts will finally become mandatory, enforceable, and applied in all of the republic. Developers of voting technologies and designers of complex election administration processes and procedures will be under the watchful eyes of government overseers, independent third parties, and the public. Better election administration will become another focus of innovation. As designers are brought to participate in the design of these services, processes, and systems as well, expect the voting experience to become more pleasant and reassuring. Gone will be the “time tax” that essentially is levied on voters forced to wait in long lines on Election Day. Nobody will have to wait for hours to vote. Improved administration will also mean more equitable distribution of equipment and resources, better training for poll workers, and improved preparation and procedures for emergencies or other Election Day breakdowns. According to Doug Lewis, head of the nonprofit Election Center, in the 2008 election, “everyone involved in conducting elections was just on pins and needles the entire year. Over-planning really helped… Election officials went to extraordinary lengths to have not only a Plan A, but a Plan B and a Plan C.” Through better communications and online sharing tools like wikis and social networking sites, expect the best practices of election administration, troubleshooting, and poll worker resources to be widely rated and made available.
In twenty years:
10. In the year 2028, voters will still have paper ballots as an option because: a) some states decide that paper works pretty well and gives the best bang for buck, b) some voters, especially older, less tech-savvy people, will be uncomfortable with electronic or other means of voting, or c) paper ballots will always be available in any election as part of good contingency planning. Nonetheless, as mentioned above, they will also have many other options available to them to make voting as easy as possible. Online voting will be available in some states, but not all. Some states will have expanded availability to any location, thus some voters will vote from home or remotely on mobile Internet devices. People will identify themselves and authenticate their eligibility to vote with a unique, randomly generated token which will be provided to them by the state. This token will not be linked in any way to other identifiers like name, address, or social security number. A voter will know immediately if his or her identity has been used already to vote. If it has been, a report can be filed instantly and directly to the government and other authorities. In addition, the voter would receive a new provisional token and be able to vote while the case is being resolved, which will have to occur rapidly. After submitting a ballot, whether online, on a DRE machine, or a paper ballot, not only will the election authorities have a paper ballot generated for audit purposes, but the voter will also have a unique, randomly generated tracking code provided which will be recorded with his/her vote and known only to that voter. It will not be retrievable if lost, but the voter will be able to use the code to later track his/her vote in the publicly available, online database which contains all precinct results being reported in real-time and transmitted up to the state level. Voters will finally be given the feedback they want and need: a way to actually track their votes, much like they can easily track a package moving through the FedEx or other delivery system. The system will be designed to protect the privacy and anonymity of the voter, since not other voter information will be attached to that record. This will provide voters confidence that their votes really did get counted and did not simply disappear into a dark, mysterious void.
Conclusion
So, that’s it. Though the future “voting booth” may not be that unrecognizable to a person from today, you can be sure that the truly cutting edge technologies will find their way into other aspects of the larger voter experience. At home, voters will have large walls or displays capable of displaying and visualizing large amounts of information about candidates and issues. They will interact with natural user interfaces to navigate through the complexity and enormity of the data in ways that will improve education and decision-making. There will be digital tools that will help guide them and prepare them for filling out ballots, by whichever method they choose to vote. And because government will be online, secure, and open, voters will also be able to mine the tabulated data in real-time, using visualization tools, so everyone can be their own John King. Of course, by then John King will have much cooler toys as well.
Outside of the home, augmented reality and powerful mobile Internet handhelds will also inform and enable voters with many of the same capabilities and resources, overlaying meaningful data, media, and realistic 3D models of people and other physical objects into voters’ field of vision. Public installations with interactive screens and surfaces, projected 3D holograms, and physical objects will also draw voters into the experience and educate, inform, and engage the populace in a dynamic, civic experience. Voters overall will be more active in the political process, leveraging the power of the Internet and social technologies to create communities and build intimate relationships between themselves and the candidates. These changes, in addition to the improvements in the registration system, expanded voting periods, and a diverse set of ballot-casting options, will also help to reduce voter apathy. Though voting from the privacy of one’s home will be preferable for some, most people will still seek out these communal experiences instead or in addition, particularly in states that no longer have physical polling places. They will choose to celebrate the democratic process and will find ways to connect with their close neighbors as well as distant communities through live, online feeds connecting small towns and urban centers across the country. Voter turnout will rise to above 70% in presidential elections because all of these changes will truly empower people and make them feel like they matter.
The media and news providers will still be trying to outdo one another with the latest applications of emergent technologies and digital tools. This will continue to provide amusing entertainment for the public, but expect people to find themselves less reliant on these sources and more deeply engaged in their own created and shared experiences — physical and virtual — where they make meaning of the unfolding political process.
As experts at the Brennan Center for Justice have pointed out, the system we have today for managing our elections and voting process is overly complicated and too vulnerable to error and manipulation. The goal of future reforms should be to utilize technology, design, policy, and other expertise to simplify the process, reduce variables which can lead to numerous and unexpected problems in the days and months before an election, and balance the needs for security, accountability, and public confidence without costing the taxpayers extraordinary amounts of money, time, or confusion. In the end, all these considerations will be factored with the requirements for election results to be determined accurately and efficiently, making the “voting booth” of the future so simple, flexible, and intuitive that voters won’t ever have to wonder if their voices will be heard. And in the event that they aren’t, we’ll all be alerted to it an instant.
So, what do all of you think? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the future voting experience…
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