Ask HN: Review my web app - Modern Ballots | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Review my web app - Modern Ballots

modernballots.com

18 pointsbradbeattie11 comments

I noticed a lot of distain for the two-party system and went about investigating alternatives. Modern Ballots is an attempt to make Schulze STV, a proportional representation algorithm, easy to use for anyone that wants to hold a vote.

Thing is, I'm not really all that savvy when it comes to UI design, marketing and all that stuff. Any suggestions on how to make this kind of thing more appealing? Electoral reform isn't exactly the sexiest of subjects, although it does entertain sporadic conversation.

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I've been wishing the US had a score based voting system for a while now, but there are considerable obstacles: -Two dominant, incumbent parties that have no incentive to make it easier for more parties. -A populace that is unlikely to understand why one would even want to change the voting system, and why score-based voting would enable more parties to rise. -Millions of dollars or more invested in the current voting system.

to name a few.

Not to discourage you, though, I think it's great.

Education might be a good place to start, and that seems to be what you're dabbling with in writing this web app. I'd be very interested to hear your ideas regarding the other issues, though (and any other issues you think of).

I don't believe the current system is codified in the US constitution, though I could be wrong - a friend and I couldn't find anything specifically prescribing the choose one candidate ballot system of voting in the national constitution when we looked. The specific methods might be decided at the state level.

Note that while the ballots are ratings ballots, they're interpreted as preference orderings with ties. So a ballot for five candidates with 5/3/3/3/3 is the same as a ballot with 4/1/1/1/1.

Not to rain on your parade here, but a multi-party system isn't paradise either. I'm not saying the duopoly is better, but multi-party systems are plagued with immobility, compromise for the sake of compromise, and lack of differentiation. Any European cynic will repeat that for you.

Similar things could be said when moving from despotism to a democracy. No system's perfect, but some are demonstratively better than others.

I didn't say that I wanted a 3+ party system, the biggest advantage would be that you wouldn't get a situation where voting for your favorite candidate screws over your close second favorite but much more likely to win candidate, as happened with Gore in 2000 when a percentage of his would-be supporters voted for Nader instead.

Don't most elections for which proportional representation is realistically feasible involve democratic governments above the local level, with tens of thousands of voters, serious worries about electoral malfeasance, and sales cycles which require legislation or in some cases Constitutional amendments?

These are not things I would go looking for if I were trying to start a small software business. I mean, in terms of "barriers to achieving conversion", passing a Constitutional amendment is pretty up there.

Not quite sure if that is relevant for what you are doing. If you're trying for a political movement, rather than a web app per se, you might want to lead with an example of a real election rather than a zombie gag.

The largest hurdle I see in electoral reform is broadening people's expectations of a ballot, which is all I'm really trying to do with this app. Approaching the problem from a legislative angle is hyperbolically analogous to asking a dictator for fairer representation. People need to see that other systems aren't all that difficult firsthand before anything happens.

A few things:

1) I noticed the top pie chart image actually links to a YouTube video explaining the general concept of the site. There is no indication on or adjacent to the pie chart image (i.e. text, mouseover) informing the user there is an explanatory video to be seen if they click the image. I would imagine most users come and leave the site without ever knowing that video exists.

Given this, I might suggest embedding the video right on the home page in place of the static pie chart image since:

a) the video provides more explanation and is more engaging than a static image. Furthermore, in my experience, modern web users (and humans in general) are lazy and much prefer watching a video to reading text as a means of learning. b) the video's first frame shows the same graph as the image (only difference being the colors of the pie slices), so even if the user doesn't wish to load/watch the video, they still see the first frame which conveniently agrees with the existing text to the right (excepting the different colors as mentioned) c) any custom video takes time and effort to create, so why not showcase it and make sure it gets seen?

2) Consider creating a better header banner with perhaps a custom logo or simply more visual textures/patterns to catch the eye and leave more of a visual impression on the user. If nothing else, change either the color of the "ModernBallots.com" title or the banner background as there currently isn't enough contrast between the two, making the title difficult to read. You want this to be much more prominent and visually appealing (not obnoxious) since it's the title and URL of the site.

3) Provide a way for users to Search/Browse existing elections.

4) Allow users to embed elections in external pages/sites. This may be the most important item of all as far as getting your site "out there", hits/activity, and user mindshare.

Obviously, there is a ton more functionality that could be added to the site (i.e. login/user accounts, related elections list (when viewing a particular election), election/candidate level comments, option to choose/change the unit of rank (i.e. [1:2:3:4:5], ['really bad':'bad':'ok':'good':'really good'], etc.), and on and on), but I'm sure you've already thought of all these and many more. However, I would focus on addressing the four items I mentioned first and foremost.

Now that I've clobbered you with criticism/suggestions, I'd like to say that I do really like the simple, straight-forward design, the slim page width, the functionality and ease of use, the straying from political examples (especially since the words "ballot" and "election" are so closely associated with political elections), the homepage text, and especially the nod/reference to the source of the site's concept (Schulze STV). Giving credit where credit is due is so rare today in the cut-throat web startup world, so it's nice to see you do that.

Good luck with the site!

Derek

#1) Done.

#2) I certainly see what you mean, but graphics really aren't my strong suit. Still, I'll give it a try.

#3) Something I've considered and it's on my stack of to do items. Would require proving users the ability to opt out of searching, but it's certainly something I aim to implement.

#4) Well, the first step is there. I've provided the algorithm's implementation in both RPC and source forms: http://vote.cognitivesandbox.com/ http://github.com/bradbeattie/Election-Web-Service

As for making it an easy "hey, paste this code to embed your election" kind of thing, I can see the benefit to it, but I just haven't bothered yet.

Thanks for the feedback! Quite helpful. :)

Great app! Really enjoyed it, and definitely will help people get a more visual understanding of how these sorts of ballots could work in real elections in the future.

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