¿¡TENEMOS VOZ!?Measuring citizen engagement in Argentina

Martín Szyszlican@martinszywww.martinszyszlican.com

Congreso Interactivo@CongresoInteracwww.congresointeractivo.org

1. Introduction and political context

2. Will NGOs use our PMO?

3. Did we just make 200.000 argentinians question their vote?

4. Is the Buenos Aires city council opening up?

5 minutes for each topic, and then a conversation.

What are we going to cover?

So what is this Argentina you're talking about? A personal perspective.

● 45M people● Independence from

Spain in 1810/6.● Small amount of

native americans.● 24 democratically

elected presidents.● 5 military coups in

20th century.● Currently 32 years

of democracy.

What was happening when I started thinking?

● 76' to 83' military coup 30k dead.

● '84 "never more" trials.

● 91' military pardoned.

● Privatized state companies.

● Double digit poverty.

● IMF rules the country.

Do I have a future?

● I had 15. Biggest economic crisis in 2001.

● I saw the president resign and run away in a helicopter.

● I start working for the web, I wanted to follow web standards.

● It took me until 2009 to realize I'm a citizen and I had my share of responsibility.

The congress around 2009

Interesting projects and debates.

● Media reform. Licenses handled by military.● Gay rights. Inclusion should be for

everyone.● Nationalizations. Privatizations failed.● Progressive taxes and retirement.

People started to take notice.

Will NGOs use our PMO?

Can user research help us improve the parliamentary process?

Redesigning the legislative UX

Or is it citizen experience?

Positive points● Valuable information for all citizens.● Processes that claim to represent all

citizens.Opportunities● Accessibility● Mediated and biased access.● Paths of action are hard to discover.

Website for the national congress (2009)

Index of voting records, by period, using a flash movie.

Index of vote events for a period

Voting record in PDF

Defining key concepts: Mental Model

"The models people have of themselves, others, the environment. People form mental models through experience, training, and instruction."

- Don Norman

Defining key concepts: Persona

"User models, or personas, are detailed, composite user archetypes that represent distinct groupings of behaviors, attitudes, aptitudes, goals, and motivations observed during the Research phase."

Alan Cooper

Understanding usersQuotations from our interviews

● Talk directly to users (7 interviews)● Observe them use the site

Tomás "the party member" Luly "the citizen"

● "I already know how to vote and who to follow"

● "My party informs me of the new laws they are planning to pass"

● "I listen to the radio" tv or newspapers also.

● "I don't look for information about the congress"

Conclusions: First research round

● We enjoyed the research method and thought it was useful.

● We had a hard time getting the volunteers to actually perform the interviews.

● Our hypothetical personas were wrong.● All citizens are not interested.● Politized citizens already their

communication channels.

Second research roundOn getting it right

● New personas hypothesis● Five more interviews

Ricardo "the researcher" Julieta "the committed citizen"

● "we want to show the congress is empty, that no one is there fighting for your rights"

● "they make it confusing so its hard to access"

● "I went to the radio and formed an association to change the law"

● "It took me five years to understand how to do it"

Interface design and usability

What tools do we need to build?● Understanding activity● Understanding actionability

How do we know they work?● User testing in controlled settings● Task-oriented measuring of failures

Current view of our Poplus-based Parliamentary Monitoring Site

View of a bill and voting

The "what can I do?" section for every bill

We performed ● 5 usability tests with NGOs● 2 co-design sessions with designers and

journalists.

Results:● Improved language in many areas● Added information based on requests● Clarified the homepage introduction

Usability of the PMO

Conclusions

How do we know we are delivering what they need?

Ensuring the match between the interface model and the user mental model is the key.

Will they use it?They said they would, and we have 100 users a day.

Did we just make 200.000 people question their vote?

With just a simple game.

Elegilegi or Pick-a-rep

How many people did we affect? Stats for July 24th, 2013 - August 18th, 2013. Primaries where on August 11th.

Trends can be hidden by granularity<- Weekly

Interest decreases as election day approaches.

<- DailyGoogle Analytic's default view can hide some information.

<- HourlyPeak of 4600 sessions in one hour occurred at midnight, 9 days before the elections

And how can I say it made them question their vote?

"When it comes to deciding a vote, a useful and fun instrument is the Elegilegi.org game"

- Horacio Verbitsky, human rights activist, director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cygft4qboJ4

Is the city council opening up?

Experimenting with DemocracyOS in Buenos Aires

Demos, based in DemocracyOS

New forms of citizen participation in city council

How was the experiment?

Phase 1Citizens ranked 16 projects by how interested they were in voting them. 3 were selected.

Phase 2Citizens debated and voted 3 projects.

Phase 3?The reps haven't voted on the projects yet.

Measures of citizen participation

● 20.000 users.● 2.400 votes cast.● 700 comments.● Project authors engaged in

social networks.

Current status

● The most voted project reached committee debate after being frozen for two years.

● Users suggestions are compiled and will be sent to the reps.

● Year ended before other projects could be debated.

● None of the citizen-ranked projects reach the chamber yet.

Final words

● UX research and evaluation is a good way of ensuring user acceptance of tools.

● Web analytics are a good way of evaluating reach and engagement.

● Following parliamentary activity is needed for evaluating whether participation experiments effectively impact policy.

Thanks.

@martinszy @CongresoInterac

Let's have a conversation.