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2019 Excellence in Visual Digital Storytelling, Small Newsroom finalist

Gimme Props

About the Project

Gimme Props was an interactive quiz to help voters learn, and make decisions, about the many propositions on the California ballot.

Propositions are often complex, making it difficult for voters to learn all the details unless they’re willing to invest countless hours reading the inevitable legalize of a state-printed voter guide reminiscent of a phone book circa 1970. This interactive game distilled each proposition to help voters understand its impact. Players had fun while also engaging in the electoral process.

The data showed that game players tended to be younger adults—a group traditionally less likely to vote and less likely to engage with policy-oriented news coverage. We designed it for mobile with a younger audience in mind: using swipe functionality similar to apps like Tinder for immediate muscle memory and better usability.

We also allowed for users to either print or save the results of the game on their device—which, according to our analytics, many people did. And while the game itself skimmed only the highlights of each ballot measure, at the end it also directed users to our more comprehensive interactive voter guide, where they could find videos, candidate profiles, campaign finance data and more.