Local Elections UI/UX - The Dallas Morning News
Problem: In 2021, the Local Elections Hub was launched on The Dallas Morning News website via modules and minimal design and UX input.
Solution: To improve the experience for the 2022 Local Elections Hub, design was included in the process, which included research, information and data gathering, and incorporating UX best practices. A few improvements to highlight in the 2022 redesign include:
- In-Page Navigation: Allows the user to easily see all counties covered on the site, as well as easily navigate between them within the hub.
- Proper Heading Hierarchy: In 2021, each county was divided up by a banner with plain text, and no header. In the 2022 redesign, proper H2’s were implemented for accessibility and SEO.
- Party Affiliation Icons: These indicators were a new feature added in 2022 to allow the user to see each candidate’s party. Previously, the user had no way to see on the page what each candidate’s associated party was.
- Progress/Win Bars: These bars were added as a visual indicator, in addition to the percentage text, to indicate the winner or candidate status in a current race. Since this is a text heavy page, adding visual indicators such as these can help keep the user engaged.
- “View All County Races” Buttons: Since there can be a large number of races occurring in various counties, the Hub was limited to displaying two races per county so as to not overwhelm the user with information. If the user was interested in seeing all races in a specific county, they were directed to a county-specific page (which also follows the same design system).
- 6-Column Chart Layouts: Expanding the charts from 4-columns to 6-columns allowed more room and white space, while reducing information overload for the user. This also allowed for a smooth transfer on the mobile design for development
Redesigned Local Elections Hub:
Previous Local Elections Hub:
