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Question of the day

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Illinois

* From the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website…

Coming soon, a redesign to the SBE website. We want to hear from our users. Here is your chance to tell us what you would like us to change in order to build a website that creates a user friendly experience that serves your needs. Please be as detailed as possible when submitting your suggestions. If you have multiple suggestions, we encourage you to submit them separately.

I’d start with a less confusing front page…

* The Question: Your own suggestions?

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:13 pm

Comments

Start from scratch. Embrace white space. Lose the clip art.

Comment by Anonymiss Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:16 pm
Don’t change a thing. Plenty of people make decent bucks being able to navigate that crazy site. Have you even thought about what this will do to jobs in Illinois???

Comment by Not Again Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:16 pm
For the Love of Pete, make searching for a candidates committee easier. Right now I think you could find ICBM launch codes faster than most searches.

Comment by Give Me A Break Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:16 pm
if you take away the option to download search results I will riot.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:20 pm
Ranking of contributors and funds. Top 20 contributors, Top 20 funds by cash on hand.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:20 pm
We create web pages likes its 1999.

Never mind, Prince’s ditty was better.

Comment by I Miss Bentohs Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:22 pm
Create a single, printable list of candidate contribution filings so that users don’t need to tediously toggle, page by bloody page.

Comment by unspun Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:24 pm
For the Love of Pete, make searching for a candidates committee easier.

Seconded.

Comment by Centennial Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:31 pm
I would simply say election results should be able to pulled in an excel format from the site directly without having to call the board. Also, it should have a contact list for all campaigns and PACs.

Comment by Peoples Republic of Oak Park Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:39 pm
I like login to be “vodka” and password to be “Putin”

Comment by Russian Hacker Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:39 pm
Just whatever you do, don’t make it worse. Seriously. Do no harm.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:45 pm
Maybe I’m just used to it, but I don’t find it that bad. Never takes long to find what I’m looking for.

Comment by Robert the Bruce Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:50 pm
Top 10 Contributors List
How to File a Complaint

Comment by Texas Red Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:52 pm
More purple.

Comment by Harvest76 Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:52 pm
“Seriously. Do no harm.”

Do not make the website “intuitive”. I’d you have to send out a YouTube video explaining how to use the site, trash it and start over. What ever you do, use the IDOT website as example of what not to do. It is the worst.

Comment by Huh? Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:52 pm
===you have to send out a YouTube video explaining how to use the site===

Many years ago, when they first launched the site, I wrote something nasty about it and they called and said I should come in for a training session. I said, dude, if I (who built his own website at the time from scratch) needed to come in for training then the site is an utter disaster for the public.

So, yes, I totally agree with you. I spend a big chunk of my day during campaigns on that site. I don’t want it to be worse than it is.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:58 pm
Hi Wordslinger - I think Illinois Sunshine provides a lot of the info you’re asking about.

Comment by DarkHorse Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 2:59 pm
Another: When I look up a candidate’s filing info, why can’t I just click on that candidate’s name and be taken to his/her campaign finance page? Or vice versa? Why can’t I also click to get the electoral history for that candidate, including vote totals? Why is everything in separate silos?

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:00 pm
What Unspun said. Have an option for however many contributions per page.

Comment by Keyrock Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:01 pm
===For the Love of Pete, make searching for a candidates committee easier.===

===Do no harm.===

Concur in whole on those two. Also, a lot of times when I’m on there, I’m having to look through a lot of similar committees, but most of the time you go back to the search page, it resets all of the fields, which is infuriating

Comment by Joe Bidenopolous Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:07 pm
Lots of good suggestions here. I was going to say almost word for word what Anonymiss wrote. So in lieu of specific suggestions, let me offer a process recommendation.

Usability testing with real users. Just pick any ten commenters on this site. Put together a couple of focus groups. Talk to them (us) about what we need. Then when you design a beta, put that group in a testing lab. Watch what we do and where we have trouble. Fix those issues. Retest. Then launch. Please. Pretty please.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:16 pm
How about a “right to be forgotten” feature that masks the Blagojevich years. #DoNoHarm

Comment by Slugger O'Toole Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:34 pm
==For the Love of Pete, make searching for a candidates committee easier. Right now I think you could find ICBM launch codes faster than most searches.==

Dear God yes. I have nothing else to add.

Comment by Driving a car Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:40 pm
Pretty specific, but … I would LOVE to be able to look up active and past complaints filed with the Board and Board/ALJ decisions without being forced to spend hours searching through pages and pages of unsearchable Board meeting minutes, all the while praying I didn’t choose the wrong meeting date.

Comment by Lt. Turmoil Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:50 pm
“Pretty specific, but … I would LOVE to be able to look up active and past complaints filed with the Board and Board/ALJ decisions without being forced to spend hours searching through pages and pages of unsearchable Board meeting minutes, all the while praying I didn’t choose the wrong meeting date.”

Yes. Yes. Oh God Yes. How about a decent search function. Ya know, web 101 from 2002.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:52 pm
In the true spirit of Illinois politics, it really should be a pay to access web site. Small donors get kicked to the side. Big donors get a somewhat functional page, all others? Sorry maybe next cycle.

Comment by Tequila Mockingbird Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 3:57 pm
It’s be nice if they exposed an API with a bunch of public endpoints. That way anyone could build a client and get exactly the data they need.

Someone should explain that if the data is public there’s absolutely no reason to hold it captive by a crappy design. Just give me an API so I can actually use the data

Not cool at all.

Comment by Anoniphone Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 4:02 pm
NYC’s site has some good design choices. http://vote.nyc.ny.us/html/results/results.shtml

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 4:09 pm
It’s using dot net.

Colors are awful.

Layout is awful.

HTML source isn’t minified.

Javascript isn’t modular. (I mean, at the very least — ditch dot net for React or Vue — and use Webpack to bundle everything up in tidy bundles — and then prerender for SEO.)

Yes, 1999 would like their website back.

(And — please, please — don’t tell me this one of DoIT’s excellent Sharepoint creations. Someone who actually knows about this stuff should explain that no one — no one — uses Sharepoint for websites.)

Comment by Bobby T Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 5:16 pm
Provisional Ballots Search is confusing. Trying to find out everyone who is running for office in my districts is confusing. Just typing in a zip code should tell me everyone who is running in the midterm including judges.

Comment by Mama Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 5:53 pm
This is a continuation of my 5:53pm post: Via my zip-code give me a listing of all federal offices, state offices and local offices that would be included on my ballot in November.

Comment by Mama Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 5:57 pm
The board agenda and minutes are awful. Chicago Cynic is spot on. Searchable is the way to go. Praying you have the right date must end.

Comment by Anon Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 6:03 pm
Maybe a feed from a fact-checking outfit like Politifact and the BGA.

Comment by Maestro Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 6:19 pm
Rich, has it ever occurred to you that the reason the website is so difficult to use is because our state campaign finance system is so bizarre?

Comment by Just Me Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 6:49 pm
Along the same lines as what Mama is saying, we have voter registration cards. Surely it could be as easy as giving us a long alphanumeric code to input to get our exact ballot.

Comment by Timmeh Thursday, Oct 18, 18 @ 7:50 pm
A “See your Sample Ballot” option would be nice. As soon as the candidates are locked in for an upcoming election, generate a sample ballot based on a Plus 4 Zip Code.

Comment by PDJT Friday, Oct 19, 18 @ 9:21 am
To Mama - it would be nice, but the various district lines don’t always follow zip code lines.

To Timmeh - the counties (or BOECs) are the ones with your exact (sample?) ballots, the SBE doesn’t have them.

Comment by titan Friday, Oct 19, 18 @ 9:32 am
La verdad es que los dibujos de navidad para colorear
son una expresión navideña que puede abarcar tanto el mundo físico como el virtual.

Comment by Bettie Wednesday, Oct 24, 18 @ 5:28 am