Design at UCI Project Teams • 3rd Place & People's Choice
PoliPal
A voting companion that helps students navigate elections with clear, accessible information.
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
Jan 2026 -
March 2026
TEAM
6 designers
TOOLS
Figma
Prompt
Designing for the future
Context
Making voting information easier to navigate.
What does the future of informed voting look like for a generation overwhelmed by information?
Our team explored how technology could lower the barrier to civic participation for young voters. PoliPal helps college students navigate jargon-heavy election information through an approachable and neutral digital experience.
Problem Statement
So we asked…
How might we simplify political information and the voting process for first-time and student voters?
Brand identity & logo designed by Yuri Fukuda.
User Research
We started by asking students what actually made voting feel difficult.
We wanted to understand where students currently look for information, and what prevents them from feeling confident in their politics.
User Surveys
The numbers pointed to a problem with clarity and trust.
From 100+ respondents, our survey showed that students weren't simply looking for more political content. They wanted information that was easier to understand.
80% of students want a single, trustworthy place where they can easily access and navigate political information
while 60% of students reported getting political info from social media, 91.7% reported they distrust that information
73.3% of students find political terms and policies difficult to understand, making it harder to interpret
4 User Interviews
Interviews helped us understand the “why” behind the numbers.
Competitive Analysis
Existing tools solved pieces of the problem, but rarely brought them together.
We compared political information and learning platforms to understand how they approached education, digestibility, structure, and neutrality.
We saw an opportunity for PoliPal to combine clear political explanations, structured learning, neutral information, and voting guidance.
Research showed us the problem wasn't a lack of information, it was making it easier to understand and trust.
Final Designs
Branding
Color Palette
Politics didn't need to look political.
Because trust and perceived bias repeatedly surfaced in our research, we avoided the traditional red-and-blue visual language associated with American politics.
Instead, we developed a warm, approachable visual system designed to make learning about politics feel less intimidating while maintaining clarity and credibility.
Typography
Catamaran
Albert Sans
Demo VIDEO
Design Decisions
How did we get here?
Three decisions shaped PoliPal into the final experience.
1 | Simplifying the information, NOT the decision
User testers questioned where information came from, whether multiple perspectives were represented, and how wording could introduce bias.
This reinforced an important boundary for PoliPal.
Rather than…
Candidate A is better for students.
PoliPal's Approach:
Here are Candidate A's positions.
Here are Candidate B's positions.
Here's what this proposition means.
Here are the relevant facts.
You decide.
Topics Page
PoliPal’s Topics Page organizes civic information around questions, helping them quickly find context while leaving decision-making to them.
2 | Turning information into guidance
User interviews revealed that students understood voting broadly, but lacked confidence in the specific process and preparation.
Voting Guide - Personal Contribution!
PoliPal’s Voting Guide gives students clear next steps and connects them directly to official government resources and trusted voting resources like Vote.org for tasks such as registration and voting preparation.
3 | Building voters for the future
User interviews revealed that limited prior knowledge made political research feel time-consuming. We shifted our learning focus:
Providing Information
Building Knowledge
Learn Page
Testing validated interactive learning, but brought up the need for variety. While some participants responded positively to quizzes, others questioned their long-term use.
This reinforced bite-sized, interactive learning while highlighting opportunities for more varied formats.
Key Takeaways
What PoliPal taught me.
Research is about focus, not volume
A tight timeline taught me that effective research is about asking the right questions and testing the highest-risk assumptions.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Title
One line to describe the vibe.
Visual design carries responsibility
Designing for politics taught me that color, typography, and hierarchy aren’t just aesthetic choices—they can subtly shape how information is perceived.
Politics Simplified.
