Project Proposal
A Case Study: Testing OpenCongress.org’s Usability
Team Members: Chelsey Glasson, David Jones and Matthew Franco
RESEARCH QUESTION
Do the layout and interactive features of OpenCongress.org make it intuitive for citizens to educate themselves on proposed bills, understand relevant issues and participate in the federal legislative process?
OBJECTIVE
Identify any usability issues and design flaws with OpenCongress.org’s layout and participation tools and propose possible changes to the website.
BACKGROUND
OpenCongress.org is a free, open-source online legislative resource created by the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation “with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement,”(“About OpenCongress,” n.d.). Since its launch in 2007, OpenCongress.org has aimed to achieve its goals by providing access to government data as well as blogs, social networking and community participation tools. The community participation tools include voting tools, used to indicate opposition or support for federal bills and legislator approval ratings, and communication tools, used primarily for connecting users to their elected federal representatives.
RATIONALE
“For all of us to live together peacefully and productively, we must embrace the notion that there be a process of discussion and education before an issue is resolved. This is an obligation of citizenship that is even more elemental that the act of voting.”
Lee Hamilton
Director, Center on Congress
From “Democracy Relies on Healthy Dialogue”
A vibrant democracy depends not only on an informed populace, but on one that is engaged as well. Most legislative data is available for citizens to review; however, it is difficult for many to find and interpret this information. Before the Internet, the traditional forms of media used to promote the democratic discussion included television, radio and newspapers. Unfortunately, these media forms only provide a unilateral information flow – from sender to receiver. Now that the Internet is widely used, online information and social media is beginning to play a valuable role in enabling average citizens to join the conversation.
Rather than furthering a specific political goal or agenda, OpenCongress.org, a nonprofit and nonpartisan entity, is focused on promoting political awareness and democratic discussion regarding current issues before the United States Congress. Our team finds value in this unbiased approach and is interested in helping to improve OpenCongress.org because it shows great promise in advancing the democratic process.
APPROACH
Our team will explore the proposed research question through a usability study and survey. The study and survey will include both quantitative and qualitative metrics.
The quantitative metrics in the usability study will include the successful completion of pre-defined tasks, and the time needed to complete each task. Our research will implement user study prompts asking participants to 1) locate a specific bill, 2) find pertinent information concerning that specific bill, 3) vote in favor or against that bill, and 4) contact their representatives. Our team may also use FirstClick testing in this approach.
We will also perform a survey at the end of every usability test with the goal of identifying user challenges and design flaws that may not be discovered during the usability test. The survey will also be used to ascertain the probability of user adoption within the user sample group. We will ask participants to rank, via a rating system, certain aspects of their experience using OpenCongress.org. Additionally, we will ask participants open-ended questions as part of the survey.
Possible rating system questions include:
1.) How easy was OpenCongress.org to use?
a.) Very Easy
b.) Somewhat Easy
c.) Difficult
d.) Very Difficult
2.) Did using OpenCongress.org help you better understand a specified bill?
a.) Yes
b.) No
3.) Did using OpenCongress.org help you identify your legislators’ position(s) in supporting or opposing the bill?
a.) Yes
b.) No
4.) Did using OpenCongress.org strengthen your interest in the federal legislative process?
a.) Yes
b.) Somewhat
c.) No
5.) After using OpenCongress.org, do you feel an increased desire to share your political views with your federal representatives?
a.) Yes
b.) No
Possible open-ended survey questions include:
1.) Would you use OpenCongress.org again in the future? Why are why not?
2.) Did the interface of OpenCongress.org seem intuitive, streamlined and uniform? Why or why not?
3.) What did you like about OpenCongress.org?
4.) What did you dislike about OpenCongress.org?
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
We have defined two participant user groups for the purpose of our usability study. The first user group will consist of people that currently identify themselves as highly engaged politically and highly informed about the federal legislative process. The second group will include those who consider themselves to be slightly engaged and moderately informed, but may be interested in increasing their knowledge and engagement. Each group will have three to five participants. We intend on using a total of six to ten participants.
By including a broad range of citizens with varying levels of political involvement and legislative knowledge in our study, we can discover whether or not OpenCongress.org is effectively helping the general citizenry become more engaged in the federal legislative process. We will consider out of scope those who do not share an interest in the federal legislative process because they are not part of the website’s target demographic.
CHALLENGES
There are several likely challenges that we will face in addressing our research question: organizing a diverse test group for our usability test and survey; extracting meaningful results from our small test group; and designing a usability study and survey without access to OpenCongress.org’s website analytics.
Given more time and resources, we would test a larger number of people and conduct a broader usability study using several different metrics. We would also conduct a more thorough review of literature, including case studies, books and academic articles, regarding nonprofits and government entities that have successfully utilized digital media platforms in the past to mobilize and engage the public. Finally, we would compare OpenCongress.org to similar websites were there more time available.
TENTATIVE PAPER OUTLINE
1. Introduction
-Introduce OpenCongress.org
-Explain why we chose to focus on OpenCongress.org
-Present research question/hypothesis
2. Approach
-Outline details of study and survey
-Provide definition of terms
-Present findings of usability study and survey
3. Feedback
-Provide feedback and suggestions based on findings
4. Conclusion
-What we learned from project
-What we would do differently in the future, suggested future research
TENTATIVE PROJECT SCHEDULE
Week of 11/03-11/08
- Prepare usability test and survey details
- Recruit study participants
Week of 11/09-11/15
- Conduct usability test and survey
- Prepare outline for presentation
Week of 11/16-11/22
- Write first draft of project paper
- Finalize project presentation
Week of 11/23-11/29
- Project Presentations on 11/23
Week of 11/30-12/06
- Write second draft of project paper, implementing feedback from presentation
Week of 12/07-12/13
- Finish final version of project paper
**12/14: Project Due Date
POTENTIAL PROJECT REFERENCES
Agre, P. E. (2002). Real-time politics: The internet and the political process. The Information Society, 18(5), 311-331. doi:10.1080/01972240290075174
Bakardjieva, M. (2009). Subactivism: Lifeworld and politics in the age of the internet. The Information Society, 25(2), 91-104. doi:10.1080/01972240802701627
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2008). The craft of research (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hoekman, R. (2007). Designing the obvious: A common sense approach to web application design. Berkeley: New Riders
Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.
Tullis, T., & Albert, B. (2008). Measuring the user experience : Collecting, analyzing, and presenting usability metrics. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.
REFERENCES USED IN THIS PROPOSAL
About OpenCongress. (n.d.). In OpenCongress. Retrieved August 24, 2009, from http://www.opencongress.org/about#about_information
Hamilton, L. (n.d.). Democracy Relies on Healthy Dialogue. In Center on Congress at Indiana University. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://congress.indiana.edu/radio_commentaries/democracy_relies_on_healthy_d ialogue.php
