Project Overview
We had to encourage and enable young Victorians to get involved in the electoral process and fulfill their democratic duty.
The Vote Victoria app was a resounding success. Downloads of our app tripled those of the previous election's app and average usage increased 1000% to over 30 minutes.
Combining users with the PR & social media coverage generated by the app, our estimates indicate it reached over half of the 18-24 year old population in Victoria, with an average 5 star rating by those who used it.
Project Commissioner
Victorian Electoral Commission
Project Creator
Team
Team Mnet
Project Brief
In a representative democracy like Australia, the people determine the direction of government. It is a vision of the VEC that “all Victorians actively participate in their democracy”.
In November 2014, Victoria had approximately 3.8 million eligible voters. Of these, approximately 26% were between 18 and 34 years of age. People within this age bracket are less likely to participate in elections for a range of reasons.
The brief was simple; engage this group.
Project Need
In order to assist with increasing the number of engaged young voters in Victoria and generate broader PR/social coverage that would spread the word around voting obligations, we created an app that would leverage a channel highly resonant with today's youth - mobile.
Due to state-wide boundary changes since the last election (2010), the apps first job was to show users their new District, using operating system location services. From there the app provided a personalised view of the nearest Voting Centres.
Then, LIVE on election night, users had the ability to monitor the counting of votes for the 2014 election. This critical technology also allowed users to follow individual Districts and see a running total for the State, and as the count progressed users could share results with friends and followers via Facebook and Twitter.
In the words of the client:
“Vote Victoria genuinely put the election in people’s hands. We set Mnet a very challenging timeframe to deliver a first grade product and the app exceeded our expectations. There can’t be a dress rehearsal for elections and the app didn’t skip a beat.”
Thomas Harper, Victorian Electoral Commission
User Experience
The application is a one view app. Architecturally very simple, but highly contextual. This made it very easy to consume – the user opened the app and the app told them what they needed to know. This changed across 7 distinct time stages e.g. early voting centres in time stage 4, results in time stage 6.
On installing and opening the app the key requirements were reinforced; “Find My District, Find Voting Centres, See Results”. This purpose was made absolutely clear in simple language, at first touch.
These requirements were immediately addressed in an easy on-boarding flow that personalised the app. The user was asked to input their Victorian address. Then they were shown their new District, their home and the nearest voting centres.
The map and animated data visualisation made exploring the app rewarding. Tapping on voting centres the user discovered accessibility information, opening hours, directions and even a how to vote video.
For results, the Two Candidate Preferred graph swung and the first preference results animated out. Map markers were not only on brand and appealing, they were also informative as to which party was leading in the 2CP, conveying the current margin of that lead in the relative opacity of the marker.
These rich and discoverable features were responded to by end users - an average time of 32 minutes was spent in the app by users over the app's very short lifespan.
Project Marketing
The Vote Victoria App was FREE to all users firstly.
It was also promoted as a component lock up in outdoor print advertising during the enrolment and pre-poll period of the State Election and in press. The intrinsic virality of the social media integration accounted for the majority of installs.
Project Privacy
As a company we take a best practice ‘privacy by design’ approach to all our projects, for compliance reasons and in accordance with our user centred approach.
We have our own evolved Privacy Policy (http://mnetmobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/mnet-privacy-policy.pdf) which conforms to the requirements of The Privacy Act 1988. The methods and constraints relating to how we collect, store, disclose (including de-identify) and remove data are detailed in this policy which is globally accessible on our website.
Our methods are practiced responsibly by trained and dedicated Competitions and Promotions staff and Technical Support staff. This underpins all the work we do for clients.
Tags
Government Services
The provision of timely government services has been transformed as applications are developed and implemented to either replace or complement previous methods. Be it the delivery of current and up to date critical information, compliance, community support and engagement, notification and registration apps are providing greater accessibility to government resources.
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