Patronage - Meeting voters where they are during a global pandemic
By leveraging social media platforms to identify and interact with voters who have signaled support or interest, we were able to build a system to help field organizers build new, meaningful and effective relationships online.
MY ROLE: Product Manager, User Researcher, UX Designer
DURATION: 6 months; May 2020 - November 2020
KEY SKILLS: Product management, User Interviews, Quantitative & Qualitative Analysis, UX Design, QA
MEDIUM: Custom web application
Background & Problem
Our team was hired to design and develop a new digital product which allowed field organizers to conduct outreach on social media during COVID-19, when traditional, on-the-ground canvassing was difficult and many organizers worked remotely. When you run ads on social, or have organic posts — many people are raising their hands with reactions and comments to indicate support, but there is no systematic way to process those and reach out. We only had 3 months to design and launch the first iteration of the product, so it could get into the hands of our users and be incorporated into their programs with enough time to be effective before the November election. The remaining 3 months were spent in active and collaborative partnerships with users providing real-time feedback, which informed many new feature releases and week by week design/dev sprints.*
*To note: designs and supporting visuals could not be included in this case study because they belong to Patronage.
Research Questions
Is social canvassing an effective way to engage with supporters during an election cycle? Are social supporters more likely to take additional actions or level-up with a campaign?
Methodology
Our research plan was broken out into different phases to follow an iterative design process:
Competitor Analysis: Research the unique problems political and advocacy clients face and compared existing products in the space.
Remote user interviews to understand interest and market fit: Identifying user types, recruiting and writing interview scripts, conducting and documenting user interviews.
Concept testing with initial designs for feedback and to identify any potential issues: Presenting risks, product recommendations, and prioritized features.
Usability testing with prototypes: Collaborating with the designer to create wireframes and prototypes and lead the testing.
Remote user interviews & survey post election / product use: Synthesizing data and presenting recommendations for future product development.
Outcomes
We had three major releases of product design and development including: the initial pilot, a web application with basic functionality (using a limited set of users), the 1.1 launch of more customized flows based on specific clients needs and the 1.2 launch of the admin interface functionality. With each iteration, we worked to prioritize feature builds and releases to align with our clients organizational goals resulting in over 500 active users in 11 different states. Specific deliverables included:
Epics, user stories and prioritized feature lists for the product roadmap
Wireframes and prototypes based on user research and testing
Custom web application for each client
QA system creation
Weekly report detailing feature releases, bug fixes and product improvements
Onboarding and training system designs and knowledge base
Final research report post election measuring success & analyzing impact
Impact
The leads canvassed through our tool ended up being better than average voter candidates. Response rates, pledge to vote’s and volunteer sign ups were all higher when compared to typical audiences. Our clients were able to use these leads in other outreach tools where they were able to collect data on how this group performed and measured against other audiences.