Gradual engagement: removing barriers for voters
A couple of weeks ago I was at the BIMA Awards with a few other Redwebbers and as you may have read we were lucky enough to walk away with an award. More specifically we won the Best Informational Website award for ‘About My Vote’, a site created for The Electoral Commission.
Origins
If you didn’t already know, the Electoral Commission is an independent body set up by the UK parliament and is responsible for ensuring that all adults over 18 in the UK can register and vote. ‘About My Vote’ is the online platform to registration.
We were tasked with redesigning the website to better meet the needs of the widely diverse adult population of the UK. The Electoral Commission had two main objectives: to increase registrations, particularly amongst the under 25s and minority groups and to reduce the resultant costs from associated errors.
Removing barriers to engagement
One of the main problems with the original website was the barrier to engagement. To access content you first had to enter a valid UK postcode. To register, the application needs to be sent to your local Electoral Officer and the easiest way to identify the correct office is by using your postcode. But the need for localisation doesn’t stop there. Depending on your location, different rules apply and the content of the site needs to reflect this to prevent confusion. However, not all information is so specific and previously no one could access it without providing personal data first.
The barrier wasn’t just preventative for people unwilling to submit personal information or those unclear of the website’s proposition. It didn’t allow for variation. What if I don’t have a postcode, or no longer live in the UK? What if I’ve just moved house or I am in the Armed Forces stationed abroad? All these questions and more were not being adequately catered for.
Gradual Engagement
Shortly after the relaunch of ‘About My Vote’ Luke Wroblewski (Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc.) introduced the concept of ‘gradual engagement’ in his book ‘Web Form Design: Filling in the blanks’. Put simply gradual engagement is the concept of introducing someone to a website without the need for registration or initial data entry – therefore it allows the user to interact with a proposition before committing to it.
We were able to open up the site by only asking for a location when absolutely necessary and when doing so ensuring, that it was clearly explained why it was needed.
Although there was no longer a need to force localisation on arrival at the site, there was still a benefit to keeping the functionality visible. For many the purpose of the site is to educate and explain the importance of voting. By contextualising the information it became more relevant. The site now enables the user to personalise the content at any point allowing them to view electoral information based on their location.
Success
Even with the barriers in place the bounce rate of the original site was still relatively low. On arrival 35% of visitors would leave without entering their postcode. The assumption is that due to the nature of the website, visitors where motivated enough to push past the obstacle placed in front of them.
By lessening the number of obstacles and improving usability the bounce rate was reduced down to only 12% and as a result, leading up to the European elections, the site facilitated the most number of vote registrations yet recorded. In fact the new website has increased conversions by approximately 87%.
The need to enter a postcode was by no means the only thing that prevented engagement but without that first clean step, implementing anything else would have had limited impact.
Considering the ways in which users flow through a process and accommodating this in the most effective and least intrusive way is invaluable. Although in certain circumstances such steps can be unavoidable it is always worth asking the question in the first place and considering possible solutions.
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