Human Factors determine how we, as humans, interact with a multitude of machines in every aspect of our lives. Despite Human Factors investigations playing a central role in fields like automotive or aviation, one field that too often fails to account for adequate Human Factors design is voting.
In the US mid-term election of 2018, Texas was at the center of a Human Factors fiasco, when its electronic voting machines flipped the vote to the opposite party’s candidates every time the voter opted for a straight-ticket ballot. This happened whenever the voter pushed the keyboard before the page had fully loaded.
A similar issue is now happening in Georgia, where, as a result of a machine glitch, the voting machine touchscreen won’t display all candidates’ names on one single page.
Despite these being two separate issues, the root cause is the same: poor Human Factors.
Both user-experience issues can be traced back to the lacking or inadequate Human Factors testing being conducted on the Georgia and Texas voting machines. Applying common Human Factors practices would have undeniably helped designers unveil these user issues early and address them prior to the software being deployed.
References
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-senate-elections-technology-georgia-elections-af357b7ab7145033f11ee34a1bbf4a3c
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018/10/26/company-blames-texas-voters-problems-on-user-error-saying-its-machines-don-t-flip-straight-ticket-ballots/