[WEB4LIB] RE: The Bad Design Election

[HTheyer]

I just heard on the radio that a school had kids elect their favorite Disney
character using the same butterfly and punch card design.  The report said
is wasn't to make a political point, but the kids all used it correctly and
didn't vote for a different character than they intended.

Could it be that adults don't read directions and kids do?

Hillary Theyer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Wiggins" <wiggins at mail.com>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 2:10 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: The Bad Design Election


> The only good thing to come of this is the the wonderful lesson that user
interface design classes and textbooks will use this for for years to
come...
>
> The New York Times had an interesting article quoting folks in the punch
card election industry; this was indeed an interface design error even
within their contraints.  You never put opposing candidates on opposite
pages in butterfly formation.  See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/politics/10MACH.html
>
> I feel very, very sorry for the Palm Beach County elections supervisor.
She actually made this design choice to make the font size larger so the
elderly could read the ballot better.  In so doing she made it much more
confusing. Imagine making a user interface design error that changes the
course of history!!!
>
> The broader lesson, I think, is that the punch card was never intended to
be something that human beings directly "mark."  The states that use them
like the fact that there is a paper object for each vote cast and they can
be machine counted.  But one Florida county supervisor said that every time
you run the cards through the count is different due to loose "chad" falling
out. A voting machine (mechanical or electronic) can also easily be
programmed to make it physically impossible for a voter to make an illegal
choice.
>
> /rich
>
> ------Original Message------
> From: "Robert J. Tiess" <rjtiess at warwick.net>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Sent: November 10, 2000 8:39:08 PM GMT
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: The Bad Design Election
>
>
> At least if the candidates/options are displayed as
> radio button input types, problems with "double-punched"
> holes on virtual ballots would be totally eliminated ;-)
>
> Robert
>
> "GRAY, PAUL" wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Jerry Kuntz [mailto:jkuntz at rcls.org]
> > > Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 10:48 AM
> > > To: Multiple recipients of list
> > > Subject: [WEB4LIB] The Bad Design Election
> > >. . .
> > > Should we feel fortunate that it would take some tortuous
> > > HTML/CSS coding to
> > > reproduce a web-based "butterfly" layout of alternately-aligned menu
> > > options?
> >
> > Yes
> Richard Wiggins
> Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
> www.netfact.com/rww         wiggins at mail.com
> 517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)
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