UPA Projects
Usability in Civic Life
"I am happy to commend the Association for its efforts to enhance public consciousness of the payoff from increased usability and efficiency in the products Americans use."
- Vice President Al Gore
UPA works to improve the user experience of civic life for all.
News
Read the Ballot Usability & Accessibility Blog
Member Dana Chisnell will make a presentation to NASED, the National Association of State Election Directors, on the importance of ballot usability testing (February 5-7, 2009)
UPA participated in the US National Design Policy Summit. The report documents the rationale for a national design policy, and proposals to the Obama administration to support innovation policy, design promotion, design standards and "policy as designed." (January 22, 2009)
"Plain Language in government writing should be the law of the land" The Center for Plain Language added this suggestion to the Citizen's Briefing Book, hosted by then President-Elect Barack Obama. (January 2009)
WCAG 2.0 is finalized. W3C announced a new standard to help create web sites that meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. (December 11, 2008)
Better Ballots The Brennan Center for Justice, with contributions from UPA members) released a report which illustrates and explains 13 classic ballot design problems that caused serious problems in real elections. (July 2008)
UPA chairs a panel on "Human Interfaces; design for accessible ICTs" at at the Joint ITU and G3ict Forum 2008 on "The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities for ICT Standards" (April 2008)
The TEITAC committee presented its report to the US Access Board (doc) with recommendations for updating accessibility regulations, Section 508 and Section 255 (April 3, 2008)
New Zealand Version 1.0 of the New Zealand Web Standards and Recommendations go into effect. UPANZ participated in the Working Group (January 2008)
US Election Assistance Commission releases new draft of Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) for public comment. (October 2007)
Design for Democracy releases Effective Designs for the Administration of Federal Elections created for the EAC. (June 2007)
The British Standards Institution issues PAS 78: Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible web sites. UPA UK provided consultation (March 2006)
Voting and Usability
The UPA Voting and Usability Project focuses on people within the election process with projects addressing:
- Usability testing for election officials
- Sharing research on usable voting systems
- Standards for the usability and accessibility of voting systems
- Ethical guidelines for user experience professionals
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This usability test kit lets Local Election Officials observe how easy or difficult it is for voters to use a ballot (either paper or electronic), in time to make changes before an election. |
| Consultants for election officials A list of usability and design professionals available for work on elections projects. Listed by state and country, to help officials make local connections. |
Usable Accessiblity
We support to improve not only accessibility, but create usable access to information, technology, products, and services, through:
- Accessibility standards
- National regulations
- Plain language
Updating US accessiblity regulations UPA participated in a US Access Board advisory committee (TEITAC) updating Section 508 and Section 255 accessiblity regulation. |
Public Comment and Advocacy
UPA speaks out as an advocate for the importance of usability, accessibility and issues that impact the user experience in civic life, including:
- Legislation
- Standards
- Public issues
As the association for usability professionals around the world, we urge members to let policy-makers know about the issues that affect our work and our lives.
- How to contact your US local and national representatives