1.
Language assistance
through design
Taapsi Ramchandani
Center for Civic Design
civicdesign.org
EAC Language Summit, 2017

2.
The epic journey of American voters
Different stages of a voter journey
civicdesign.org

3.
Inviting LEP voters to participate in
our elections
A pleasurable voting experience is when an LEP voter can:
 Find the information she needs
 Find the information in her own
language
 Mark her ballots as she intends

4.
“Can I fit five
languages?”
Language support requires space
on paper

5.
Fitting multiple languages on a
single document is a tradeoff
 Too many languages lead
to clutter and confusion
 Languages that share the
same alphabet script can
be hard to differentiate
 Monolingual and bilingual
voters find and read
information differently

6.
Di fferent layout options serve
different purposes
Oakland voter guide
entirely in Chinese
Madera voter guide
cover interleaving
English and Spanish
Colusa voter guide in English and
Spanish side-by-side

7.
“How do I present
each language?”
Information must be clearly
visible, in all languages

8.
Create a multilingual online
experience
lavote.net
 Multilingual websites
show inclusiveness
 Voters should be able to
easily find and switch
between languages at
any point
 Website features should
be consistent across
languages
 Voters with accessibility
needs should have
support in their language

9.
Offer language options on a digital
ballot
EAC’s Effective Designs for the
Administration of Federal Elections, and
the Anywhere Ballot
Voters must be able to:
 Know that they have the
option to select between
languages
 Know where to find
language options
 Recognize their language
easily

10.
Treat languages equally on printed
materials
 Use shading, typeface
and images together to
convey a message
 Be consistent in how
languages are treated
across election materials
 Audio technology should
support combination of
translation and
transliteration

11.
”Can my election
department handle
it?”
Voting systems should be able to
support language assistance
today and in the future

12.
How can we support interaction at a
polling place/vote center?
 Printed materials with
language support must
be visible, consistent,
easy to follow
 Language preferences
can be shared across a
voting system
 Poll workers must be able
to interact with and
support language needs
of LEP voters using
different voting systems

13.
Get in touch!
Taapsi Ramchandani
taapsi@civicdesign.org
@digitaldidi
@civicdesign
Field Guides to Ensuring Voter
Intent have general guidelines
for voter education and ballot
design best practices
http://civicdesign.org/fieldguides