Increasing political dialogue for Political Lens by applying patterns we see on social media formats.

Overview

How can we increase political participation?

• The Political Lens is a non-profit organization that works to expand political participation and give a voice to all Americans.

• In order to attract attention, they need to approach political dialogue in a new way. The Political Lens is interested in exploring the role that storytelling could play in order to encourage and expand participation and give voice to all Americans.

Project Details

The Opportunity

Question: How can we increase engagement in an uncomfortable environment?

Politics is not topic that people feel comfortable participating in, regardless of the context. There are media sources that people already love and willingly participate in. How can we learn from these platforms to improve uncomfortable conversion?

Hypothesis: By following patterns and establishing a strong following

By designing a familiar platform following patterns we see on social media formats, users will intuitively know how to use the new website. By introducing influencers to tell and facilitate stories, we will be able to attract more users to consume and potentially post content to be shared by Political Lens.

Research

Process

Apply What Has Already Been Proven

• Conduct interviews and surveys to develop empathy & define user needs

• Develop archetypes and define primary user goals

• Test scenarios and map user journey

• Discover power of storytelling and influencers

• Research social media platforms that have proven success

• Wireframe design iterations

• Usability testing and re-iteration

Our approach that worked well on this project was to define our primary archetype early. This helped us narrow our scope and strategize design decisions. We learned that the dominating population of users are politically informed, but reserved to share their own opinions. This group of people are highly interested in people who inspire them.

We quickly learned that people are attracted to human-centric storytelling. With storytelling, people can imagine real scenarios and build a connection with the story-teller and their content. We also learned that if these stories were told by people they admired (influencers), they built even stronger connections.

With our primary archetype defined, we focused on designing specifically for them. We iterated and tested many versions of our wireframes, until we came up with a version that was familiar and engaging to users.

“Our brains are insanely greedy for stories”

Our own early years we experienced the world through direct engagement and, as children, we learned through being told bedtime stories and fairy tales. We became story-listeners when we were young. Stories bring their audiences back to a natural state of primal listening.

Power of Influencers

• 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.

• For each dollar spent on influencer marketing, marketers see an average of $7.65 in earned media value returned.

• Credibility, attractiveness, and relatability are among the key indicators of an influencer’s ability to influence.

MVP Design Strategy

Delivery

Homepage:

• National trending stories will be displayed at the forefront of the website

• Generated from and respecting format of facebook and instagram

• Local stories generated by volunteers on Political Lens’ political website

Local Influencer and Volunteer Impact:

• Local Stories and volunteer stream from Political Lens social media platforms

• Community stories and opportunity to engage with people in your community

Stories:

• Top stories based on number of claps within platform

• Ability to participate with commenting and to receive claps

Reflections:

By offering a platform that offers a familiar pattern of storytelling and capturing stories from influencers, our hope is to generate more participation via our own social media platforms to share on our website. As people build a stronger connection to these stories, we believe people will be more eager to consume political news and hopefully participate. Next steps would to launch the new website in California, to see if the new story telling method increases traffic to the Political Lens’ website.