Page History

When Mrs.Johnson begins her task, this is the first scene she sees. She logs in with her username and password.

After logging in, she sees the welcome screen. This screen gives her a personalized welcome message, and informs her of the task of the day: she has 50 ballots to audit. She can choose to count these ballots by race, or by ballot (going through one complete ballot at a time).

Mrs. Johnson, having audited ballots this way for a long time, chooses to count by ballot. She presses the "By ballot" button.

This brings her to the main counting screen. On the top left corner she sees what race she's counting for, in this case the presidential race. In the top right corner, she sees what ballot she's currently on (ballot #1). 

Candidates are represented as ballot boxes, and there is a single 'ballot' in the center of the screen. Mrs. Johnson must drag and drop the ballot onto the corresponding candidate box to 'count' a vote in the ballot. If she casts her ballot in the Obama/Biden box, she is showing that the ballot she's auditing voted for Obama/Biden.

The layout of candidates is improved for efficiency. Top and bottom boxes hold the two candidates that received the most votes in the election (remember this is an audit, and votes have already been counted preliminarily). Because elections in the US are dominated by two major parties, we can assign one of these boxes to each party for every screen and improve consistency. To the user, these boxes have infinite height when dragging and dropping, so they don't have to be as precise. Blank and write-in boxes are always in that position as they involved fairly common votes. The idea for this layout was inspired in a pie menu, to give fast access around a central pivot.

The reader tells Mrs. Johnson that the vote is for Obama/Biden. She drags the ballot and moves it onto the Obama/Biden box. When she enters the box's area, the box is highlighted by a dotted boundary and changes color to give more feedback about the action that she's about to perform.

Mrs. Johnson drops the ballot onto the box.

After dropping the previous vote, she is immediately taken to the next screen. Her cursor is placed on the ballot again. The top left hand corner has been updated to show her that she's in the Senate race, but still on ballot #1.

This race has less candidates, but maintains a fairly consistent layout. Blank and Write-in boxes are in the same place. Top and bottom candidates are still of the two most voted parties.

The writer tells her that the vote is for Scott Brown, and Mrs Johnson drags and drops the ballot onto the top box.

The system moves forward, Mrs. Johnson will now count the votes in ballot #2. 

(Note: the drawing does not show blank and write-in boxes. This is a drawing error, they should be there)

However, the reader tells her he made a mistake. Mrs. Johnson presses the back button to correct the mistake.

She is taken to the previous screen. In place of the ballot, the candidate's box she chose is selected. She clicks on it to undo her choice.

The ballot 'flies' out again, and her cursor is positioned on the ballot. The reader tells her that the vote is for Elizabeth Warren instead.

She drags and drops the ballot onto the Elizabeth Warren box.

Image Removed

Mrs. Johnson is back to counting for ballot #2 ...

Image Added

... we fast forward to the last race of the 50th ballot. She drags and drops the vote for Scott Brown.

(Note: the drawing does not show blank and write-in boxes. This is a drawing error, they should be there)

Image Added

The system tells her she's completed her task for the day. She can choose to submit her audit, or go back and fix mistakes. Mrs. Johnson presses 'Submit'.

Image Removed