How might we identify gaps, improve usability for all voters including those with accessibility needs, and increase the long-term value of the app so it supports users before, during, and even after the election?
Elections Ontario’s voter app struggled to gain adoption due to its limited functionality and reliance on website content.
Downloads dropped 40% from 70K in 2022 to 42K in 2025, highlighting a clear decline in value to voters.
Project Overview
Problem
Solution
To stay relevant, the app needed to be reimagined with year-round utility, accessibility, and modern design standards.
I mapped user flows to uncover gaps, researched other electoral bodies, interviewed stakeholders, and conducted market analysis to inform design decisions.
Impact
The redesign and research work provided a clear understanding of voter needs feeding into a larger discovery project.
It also helped Elections Ontario prioritize features and allocate resources for focus groups and usability testing.
Conducting a Comparative Analysis of Other Electoral Apps
I conducted a competitive analysis to understand the broader landscape of election and civic engagement platforms, examining common features, unique value propositions, usability, emerging trends, and opportunities for year-round engagement.
Outputs:
Established a benchmark of core features voters expect across platforms.
Identified differentiators and best practices from national and global civic tools.
Uncovered opportunities to extend the app’s relevance beyond election day.
Applied findings to inform project priorities, budget considerations, and user testing needs.
Exploring Design Strategies to Improve Clarity
Key Takeaways
Gathering Contextual Research
Contextual Research & Discovery
To begin, I explored the broader context surrounding the project, examining voter engagement, privacy and legal considerations, digital trust, and the ethical use of AI to inform responsible design decisions.
Outputs
Investigated why certain age groups are less likely to vote and explored public perceptions of trust in digital platforms.
Assessed the app’s capabilities, limitations, risks, and opportunities for meaningful improvement.
Gathered insights on app features, usability, and its relevance beyond election periods.
Created a stakeholder map to better understand the broader ecosystem and relationships shaping the user experience.
The Design Process
The Challenge:
Every year, millions of voters navigate the complexities of an election, yet many struggle to find the information they need, when they need it.
The Elections Ontario (EO) app was meant to simplify this process, providing access to critical election-day information, especially the Voter Information Card (VIC).
Despite being a native app, much of the experience felt like detour back to the website, leaving users with a fragmented journey. For a process as important as voting, this created a gap between the service and the people it was meant to serve.
The Opportunity:
The app had the potential to modernize the voter experience, yet limited functionality and engagement meant it was not living up to that promise.
Building on the insights from research, user flow mapping, and competitive analysis, I began developing wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes that addressed the key pain points identified.
I focused on simplifying navigation, reducing unnecessary redirects, and proposing features like real time tracking, civic modules, and in-app surveys. Each proposal was informed by evidence, drawing on user behaviour, unmet needs, and best practices from other civic and engagement apps.
Outputs:
Annotated wireframes
Low-fidelity prototypes
Feature proposals
Mapping out which privacy impact assessments are relevant to our research findings.
Synthesizing on current levels of citizen trust in the context of voting.
Journey Mapping User Flows
Next, I mapped key user flows to identify pain points, duplicated or buried content, and gaps between the app’s structure and the intended elector journey. This provided a foundation for developing hypotheses and prioritizing opportunities.
Research and survey data also revealed a decline in app downloads and showed that most users primarily downloaded the app to access their Voter Information Card (VIC). This raised a key question: How might we increase the app’s long-term value before, during, and after an election?
Outputs:
Generated design concepts to simplify the app and minimize redirects.
Assessed whether the app truly met a users most basic needs (access to VIC, registration, changing voter address)
Tools Used: Miro
By analyzing other voting apps, I translated proven strategies into actionable ideas that could modernize and strengthen Ontario’s approach.
In this picture I map out the flow an elector will take via the app in different scenarios; If the user has already registered/ if they are accessing our app as a guest/ If they wish to sign up.
User flows mapped via a red line indicate that information is rerouting to the website. Those mapped via a green line show where information is being duplicated.
I evaluated service lists and personalization features across government apps to uncover strategies that could enhance the voter experience.
By mapping out the flows and features of other elections apps’, I was able to identify best practices and translate them into opportunities for design improvements.
This prototype reimagined the EO App with a personalized dashboard, tailored to each voter’s key election needs and information.
This project reinforced the importance of designing for the end-to-end user journey, rather than isolated touchpoints. Through user flow mapping, research, and competitive analysis, I identified areas of friction, buried information, confusing redirects, and opportunities to create greater, year-round value beyond the election period.
Proposals Included: Real-time Candidate Tracking, In-App Surveys, Personalized User Dashboard, AI Search Model, and Civic Engagement Modules.