Smart Voting Joystick
Sarah J. Swierenga
Graham L. Pierce
Stephen Blosser

Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting
Michigan State University
sswieren@msu.edu 

NIST AVT Workshop
Gaithersburg, MD
April 1, 2013

Project Team
•	Sarah Swierenga, Director, MSU UARC (PI)
•	Graham Pierce, User Experience Researcher, MSU UARC
•	Stephen Blosser, MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities
•	Engineering Design Capstone Team:
–	Yangyi Chen, Tyler Dennis, Graham Pence, 
Behdad Rashidian, Joy Yang
•	Introductory engineering student teams
Accessible Voting Systems
•	Electronic voting systems do not work well.
–	Many individuals with disabilities can’t use them at all.
–	Take a very long time and are painful to use, even with no major disabilities.

•	Project funded by ITIF to create “Smart Voting Joystick”
•	Other Michigan State University voting projects
–	Design of accessible mobile voting system standards
•	Ongoing, funded by NIST
–	Testing Usability Performance of Accessible Voting Systems
•	Complete, funded by NIST
Electronic Voting System Controls
•	Common Standard Controls:
•	Touchscreen requires hand, arm, and shoulder strength and accuracy.
•	Button panel requires finger/hand strength and accuracy.
•	Neither can be used by individuals with significant hand/arm/shoulder disabilities.
•	Most cannot be moved – individuals with limited reach (including those in wheelchairs) can’t use them.
Alternative Electronic Voting System Controls
•	Common Alternatives:
•	Sip/puff is only used by individuals with no hand/arm control.
•	Two-button switch painful/impossible with hand/arm problems.
–	Requires up to 1200 button-presses to complete the NIST Standard Test Ballot with no mistakes.
–	Every change or mistake can take 100+ button-presses to modify/fix.

Smart Voting Joystick
•	MSU Electrical and Computer Engineering capstone design team

•	Create a smart joystick to plug in to electronic voting systems.
•	Obtain feedback from users voting a shortened NIST ballot using the joystick

Mounting Options Design Challenge
•	Engineering student teams asked to design universal mounting devices
•	Design Goal: 
–	Must be easy to set up
–	Quick mounting
•	Several options:
–	Table mount
–	Chair mount (with/without armrests)
–	Wheelchair mount
–	Free-standing mount (locking swing arm?)
–	Other ideas?

Contact Information
Sarah Swierenga, PhD, CPE
Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting
	Michigan State University
Phone: 517-353-8977
E-mail: sswieren@msu.edu 
Web: usability.msu.edu