Why are we analyzing the Wahl-O-Mat?
Before every major election, many of us reach for our cell phones or laptops and check our views against those of the parties. The Wahl-O-Mat is not only fun, but also an important tool for many citizens who are still undecided before the election. That is why it is important that the Wahl-O-Mat is easy to use for everyone, integrates poka-yoke functions or uses sequential interlocks.
But is the Wahl-O-Mat really mature from a user experience perspective, or are there still changes to be made? We took a closer look at the Wahl-O-Mat and tell you how we as an internet agency fared in the analysis.
First impression
What was originally intended as a quick decision-making aid has now developed into a great journey through the party platforms.
The design is well done and ensures that you immediately know that you are at Wahl-O-Mat. Unfortunately, the night mode loses a little of its charm here. But the operation itself is smooth - selection fields, checkboxes and everything else react quickly and without problems.
The weighting of the topics is also excellent - here the user focuses on the topics that are most important to them!
Problems of the Wahl-O-Mat
A small damper: Sometimes there are competing control elements, for example when tuning - the pull-down menu fights with a checkbox, both elements should decide on the inclusion of your own opinion.
However, the real annoyance comes when using the site on mobile devices. If the page reloads, this is not intercepted. One wrong swipe upwards and a whole pile of work is immediately gone. The problem could be easily avoided: Automatically save progress and disable accidental reloads by swiping.
The accessibility icons at the bottom of the page and the tab navigation icons are also pretty eye-candy, but more of a puzzle for normal users.
Fine-tuning: for professionals only
In the party comparison section, you can then delve deeper into the individual differences. There you can check the individual questions against all parties and in the next point, slightly redundantly, read all the answers of the individual parties in one go.
This is probably intended more for those who want to delve deeper into the boundless world of politics.
Fortunately, from a user experience perspective, this is not immediately obvious to most people. This is because in the first step, you can already deal with the results obtained in detail and yet clearly.
Our conclusion
First of all: do the Wahl-O-Mat and then put the results into practice at the ballot box! Because perhaps the image you had of the parties no longer corresponds to reality.
All in all, the Wahl-O-Mat remains a great tool before every election, but there is still room for improvement. The design should be implemented in such a way that users do not inadvertently trigger page reloads that delete their progress. In addition, a clear concept should be used to remove any doubts users may have about buttons that have the same function or no function at all. The Wahl-O-Mat should be so clear that even children would have no difficulty using it.