DEFINING THE PROBLEM AS A NEED TO INCREASE VOTER INFORMATION

I felt able to redefine my design problem as a need to increase voter information. In line with this definition, I developed a fuller idea of an interactive infographic system that would reveal speech and actions (e.g., votes) related to the energy crisis and the adoption of renewables.

WHO WOULD USE THIS?

At this stage, I could best describe my audience as active voters interested in how their representatives had acted in relation to renewables and fuel poverty. My vision was for a live data feed throughout the term of the current government. (Elections would next take place in September 2026.) This would be distributed as a web app.

The access point I saw as a mobile-first, web application, freely accessible to anyone who wanted to use it. Distribution would take place over social media, with some face-to-face promotion and potentially an advert in the local newspaper.

I reasoned that voters would be intrinsically motivated to access the system due to a need and/or desire to monitor their political representatives. Although the Isle of Man Government does promote transparency, voter’s needs are underserved by the format the available data is presented in. As such, voters would welcome an engaging and intuitive system.

WHO SPECIFICALLY WOULD USE THE VOTER INFORMATION SYSTEM?

I began to move towards creating personas for users of the system to help me understand user idiosyncrasies. However, it was during a crit sessions that I was rightly advised to take a step back and think about the audience more generally.

When I did this, I discovered some difficult defining a specific target audience. I felt, then, that I had taken several steps ahead because I was excited about creating the infographic programme, but I could not say who for certain would use it outside of general interest users. Due to this, I could not be sure that this project would have meaningful impact.

Luckily, I booked to attend a renewable conference being held in the Isle of Man, the focus of which was a low-carbon island economy. I was hopeful that I would gain some quality answers and clarity of direction from the expert panel that would also be in attendance.

LOW-CARBON ISLAND CONFERENCE

I attended this conference to give myself an opportunity to ask some questions from industry experts. The speakers included government advisors on decarbonisation and industry experts that had implemented renewable energy systems in their home countries.

The Low-carbon Island Conference was organised by the Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce in association with the Energy and Sustainability Centre IoM. The conference included several talks by experts who had successfully implemented renewable projects in their home regions (including the Faroe Islands and Denmark) and finished with a panel discussion including all the experts.

I used the talks and panel to ask some questions that could help forward my project.

WHO SHOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR RENEWABLE MESSAGING?

I wanted to hear the experts’ thoughts on who should be the audience for pro-renewable messaging. I tried to lead the panel into identifying a specific audience.

At first I was a little disappointed with the responses because they fell back on a “everyone needs to hear” reply. However, after everyone else had spoken, Dr Dave Quirk, a renewables specialist and advisor to the Isle of Man Government, said that he believed the CEOs of government departments were the most important people to reach. He also expressed a view that wind power is the future of the island’s energy requirements.

WHAT FORMAT IS MOST EFFECTIVE FOR A GRAPHIC DESIGN SOLUTION?

Another question I was looking to answer was related to the format of the final output. Up until this point, I’d been keen to find a way to code something engaging, but I was reluctant to stop at a coded out prematurely since it may not have been the best design solution.

Serendipitously, David Quirk presented the room with playing cards he’d had made. The cards were essentially Top Trump style cards showing the pros and cons of different types of renewable energy.

The Island’s Deputy Chief Minister (the second highest office in the Manx Government) praised the card game in her closing speech and expressed a belief that gamification was the way things should be going. She believed that gamification was the road to the greatest impact.