Happy Emergency

Pixel-Perfect UI: How to Design Upvote Arrows

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:14:00 -0500

Here are the behavioral and visual factors I used to inform my design of up/downvote arrows for MyMaryland.net. This is pretty extreme UI nerdiness so if you’re not in our tribe here are some kittens.

Start with UX
What are the users’ goals as they relate to your functionality? What actions does the user want to accomplish, how should the features allow them, what moods should they engender? What actions were users taking prior to voting, and what will they do after? Short answer: In our case we wanted users to be able to voice general support or opposition to a post or comment. Pretty standard. However we also wanted users to feel as though they needed to vote on every post. We wanted unvoted posts to feel unresolved, and post-vote to feel like an accomplishment akin to crossing an item off a to-do list.

Use Cases

Users can vote up or down
Users can change their vote
(intentional omission: we do not want to allow users to “unvote”, although that is often desirable)

What is an “Upvote”?
What an upvote is isn’t as clear-cut on MyMaryland.net as it is on most sites with content voting. Generally, an upvote is seen as a recommendation for that content. On MyMaryland.net, however, the noteworthiness of the content is different than the primary reason most users will vote: to express their support or opposition to an opinion. Initially, we thought that the vote arrows on the list view page would express whether or not the content was recommended and that the content specific voting—whether or not the user supported or opposed it—would be done on the separate content page. I thought the distinction between vote-types would be difficult for most users to understand. For example, I thought it would be difficult for a user that has a strong opposition to an issue to both vote against it AND recommend that content, even though the expression of their opinion is a clear indication that they found the content valuable. Instead we went with one vote per post/comment.

Arrows versus Thumbs
The question of whether to use arrows or thumbs wasn’t a clear one, and the choice is likely one of the biggest decisions you’ll make when designing vote arrows because it’s the biggest variable in defining the act of voting for your users. Arrows can be cleaner visually but there can be some amount of ambiguity for users. Thumbs-up and down are a clear indication of favor, at least in the western world, but there is also a degree of casualness to them that we felt would detract from the image of serious deliberation. You give a thumbs up to a movie, not a law.

Precedent Study
As a frame, let’s look at 3 of the most well known voting arrows in use today.

Disqus, with their minimalist primary-edge arrow pair. Tailless. Grey both when unvoted and when selected.

Reddit, with possibly the most used voting arrows on the web. Tailed, grey when unvoted, orange and teal when voted.

Stack Overflow. Tailless, grey when unvoted and voted. Simple, unexciting.

Arrow Shape - To Tail or Not to Tail
A lot of vote arrows are tailless, some even bodiless, just existing as their slicing edge, such as the Disqus arrows. For younger and more internet-acculturated users the tailless geometries are often the best choice because their modern abstractions allow for the greatest degree of minimalism, but to be most clear for our older users (some in their 80’s) I felt tails would be helpful.

Arrow Angle
The angle of the arrowhead is also a consideration. Though the three samples above are all obtuse, you probably have another arrow on this screen with an acute angle: your mouse pointer. Near-right-angle arrows have a geometric stability that gives them weight and presence without being overly dominating. Acute, sharp arrows will stand out from clean layouts, having a greater degree of object-ness than arrows that blend into the rectilinear page elements.

Plus, arrow head angle is somewhat of a secondary variable since it relies on height and width for variation, if you wanted an acute arrow you’d need to sacrifice tail or width.

Arrowhead Barbs
Similarly with the angle of the arrowhead, the barbs are best kept horizontal to integrate the arrow into the page. If you want a little more objectness for the arrow then barb angle is an effective tweak because the non-parallel lines will stand out strongly.

Small Digression on Mouse Pointer Arrows

Mouse pointer arrows have a very particular job, and their dynamic form accomplishes it well. Why?

Angled orientation, pointing to 11 o’clock: causes it to stand out strongly from the rectilinearity of most programs/pages; the body of the arrow angled at 11/5 o’clock sweeps it out of view for more precise clicking of text for us left-to-right reading westerners; the angle matches basic western eye direction of top left to bottom right, giving it a sense of pointing forward.
Subtle barbs create even greater contrast with content while maintaining its strength.
Acute arrowhead angle balances just the right degree of accuracy (sharpness) with presence (width).
Black and white fill and stroke guarantee it contrasts with content regardless of white or dark theme or content.
Drop shadow to add a little additional contrast and further strengthen its objectness.
I’m using OSX at the moment so I can’t say how universal this is, but the perfectly vertical left cutting edge of the arrow is clever for two reasons. First, having that vertical edge anchors our precision for the arrow point, making it much easier for users to get the point on the exact pixel they choose. Second, though antialiasing is becoming less of an issue as PPI gets absurdly large, having one non-AA edge gives it solidity; the non-fuzzy primary edge makes the pointer much stronger.

Gradient

A great way to add to the directionality of the arrow is to use a gradient fade in the direction of the arrow. I kept it subtle to stay at an unconscious level. Often the best design moves are those the user isn’t aware of even though they are under its influence.

Colors
Colors are powerful tools for conveying meaning. Given that the up/downvote arrows aren’t the strongest indication of support/opposition, I felt we needed to bring big guns: stoplight green and red. I picked hues that complimented the punchy color palette of the site, then saturated to the ideal level of impact. For the contra-down I went grey with a hint of red/green, returning to the unvoted color on hover. Once you vote the color conflict is resolved, red or green wins, but if you want to switch the color returns.

Depth

Depth is a thorny issue; it tends to veer toward skeuo or look dated. I kept these arrows flat except in the down state, which are recessed. This sort of glowing void arrow clearly doesn’t look like it can be pressed; there is no button there. But the imprint of the arrow shape clearly signals it was there. And in its place the glowing light shows the effect of an action; something was activated. Our brains are hardwired that a glow is an effect caused by something.

Final

The arrows in their three states.

Weaknesses and Shortcomings
These arrows were built in somewhat of a rush. I didn’t have the time I wanted to spend on the design(always the case), but it was even more hurried than “normal”. Consequently there are some things I’d like to address in the 2nd draft.

The feeling of resolution isn’t strong enough with the down/contra-down arrows. Maybe the colors could change hue and saturation. Maybe instead of grey the contra-down arrow could go with a subtle neutral color such as a warm grey/sea-green.
The vote behavior isn’t instant. The superscript % and button state should use ajax to change instantly.
The colors aren’t perfect, I’m not happy with the red and greens. They don’t have enough character.
The arrows shouldn’t expand on hover. Yes lots of people do it but its gives a sense of cheapness. It makes icons look like decals instead of fully integrated components.

An Article of Mine in TechCrunch: How To Build A Political Social Network That Actually Works

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:46:00 -0500

Here’s another article I had published in TechCrunch recently about political social networking. Getting closer to making big change with small bytes.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/19/strategies-for-building-political-social-networks/

Inception Branding

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:12:00 -0500

Your brand doesn’t exist in your marketing, it exists in the minds of your customers. Simple, obvious, but it does raise a possibility: if your customer unlocks your brand meaning, that process of discovery will add a strong sense of ownership and desire.

To illustrate this idea let’s assume we have a clothing company launching a new product-line for which we’ve already developed a brand persona (a recently popular exercise involving the creation of richly developed fictional characters that embody the personality and philosophy of your brand.) Brand personas are useful visualization tools that give people permission to imagine the world through the eyes of their hero-product. Just as children who are asked “how would a smart kid answer this question?” will themselves produce better answers, so brand personas give employees the nudge to role-play beyond the professional personalities in which they’ve cast themselves and produce branding more in alignment with their brand’s values. For our example, our clothing company’s brand persona for their new product-line is targeted at young, edgy urbanites.

How do we derive the final branding from the brand persona, is it just a further derivation of the brand persona to media such as graphics and marketing materials? No, the final step is to add the customer persona, the fictional-character representation of the key traits of your customers, then find a vehicle to create your brand identity in the mind of your customer persona. Brand is not your product’s identity, it is the prism through which your customer creates that identity in their own mind.

That is exactly what A-style did, the Italian clothing company whose logo you see at the top of this post. To many, their logo appears to be a sturdy “A” with a slumping umlaut. But to their young, sex-positive market their logo in fact shows two people having doggy style sex. This was a symbol whose meaning their target market was equipped to unlock. Their customers felt a strong connection with their brand because the customer’s minds recorded it as though they thought it up.

This is an easy point to miss, and many companies don’t trust their customers enough to make the connection sufficiently and thus opt for more prima facie branding.

As an example of a company that fell into this trap, French Connection was pursuing the same market at the same time. They wanted the same young, edgy, sex-positive customers of A-style, but as their central brand vehicle their new FCUK logo required no target-market specific decoding, let alone any decoding by anyone in the world. Everyone who even glanced at FCUK reads it as FUCK, there’s no sense of personal accomplishment in recognizing it, it’s simply a here’s-our-brand pie in the face. It was edgy, it was sex-positive, but it didn’t create the same connection with its customers. It is an easy trap to create branding materials that give you the sense of your ideal brand, but it will never compete with brands that conjures the imagery in their customers’ minds.

To create a sticky brand your customers must create the brand themselves. You can bring them 90% of the way, but if they make that last 10% connection themselves they will make your brand their own.

"Government will never be a proper organ of progress because it relies on the support of a population..."

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:31:00 -0500

“Government will never be a proper organ of progress because it relies on the support of a population with disparate ideologies.”

Shared Worldview Communities to Supercharge Activism - The House Foundation

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:21:00 -0500

I’ve been developing this concept for a few years on a back burner in the recesses of my mind. Over the last year or so it’s been increasingly demanding, and about four months ago I started working with Lee Shanahan on the idea.

It’s current iteration can be found here, applying for a grant to develop it with the Knight Foundation. I’d love to hear feedback, and if you like the idea please “Applaud” it.

Text/Submission: http://kng.ht/ZTZCkz

YouTube Video (2:11) : http://youtu.be/4ZjNtPbf8FY

"Innovation: Connecting ideas in novel ways to create new solutions to old, previously intractable..."

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:51:00 -0600

“Innovation: Connecting ideas in novel ways to create new solutions to old, previously intractable problems.”

My Article in TechCrunch: How To Build A Revolutionary Political Social Network

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 21:45:00 -0600

I recently had this article published in TechCrunch, give it a read:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/blueprint-for-a-democracy-transforming-startup/

"When life gives you trolls, make a fucking troll martini."

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:06:44 -0600

“When life gives you trolls, make a fucking troll martini.”

"Poor writers try to write instead of trying to speak."

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:30:00 -0600

“Poor writers try to write instead of trying to speak.”

Google Play Store Loses Battle With Optical Illusions

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:53:00 -0600

Warning: If you aren’t a designer you’ll find this uninteresting. Move along. Move along.

I spent a nightmarish 1.5 hours getting the Nexus 4 yesterday—How could G blow that it in so many ways?— and a few optical illusion UI issues jumped out at me. Let’s see what you think.

I would recommend opening the two full-size screenshots linked below to see the true before and after. With this tumbr theme the size restriction forces me to use 500px wide vignettes which minimize the impact.
Original
Modified

Before then After

And since the changes are subtle (but #4, below) here are the differences called out and the modified css.

There are really two underlying components of environmental psychology that are operative in these examples:

We don’t see with our eyes, we see with our mind.
Looking right is more important than being right.

1. Weakened Edges
The edges of white content background boxes are being eroded by the diagonal white line page background texture. That type of fine parallel hatching can cause tons of optical illusion problems, though because of their light color and relatively low contrast they’re not overly problematic here.

The solution is adding a mid-tone grey border at just the right opacity. You can’t see the border, but the box is stronger and edges don’t bleed. It’s hard to tell in the vignettes, but on the full screen pngs linked above its a pretty striking difference.

2. Choppy Type
Due to the same type of problem caused by the tight diagonal lines on the background, the “SOLD OUT” looks blocky, almost as though the font smoothing was disabled or there was a faint dark drop-shadow. Because of the higher contrast of the white diagonal on the dark background, as compared to the previous example, in this instance the diagonals cause the dark background to read as lines that erode the type. Compare the bold “SOLD OUT” to the bold “More options” below it. The original hardly looks bold at all (though this is also partly due to 13px vs 14px font size).

To fix this I added 3 drop-shadows of varying tones and opacities.

3. Slumping Title
The “Nexus 4” title should be vertically centered, but it isn’t. Actually it is, it just doesn’t look like it, instead it looks slightly lower. It’s subtle but on some level people will have a sense that it’s somehow “wrong”.

The cause is the thin dark blue bar on top of the main blue title bar. Even though the “Nexus 4”, is perfectly centered in the original, the addition of that thin dark blue bar unbalances the lower bar. Since they are so similar in hue and shade their shared edge actually bleeds together, making the lower bar seem taller. You also detect the bleed in that the thin dark blue bar almost looks like a drop shadow from the menu bar, doesn’t it? If you don’t look directly at it that edge looks like a gradient.

The dark bar is a nice touch though, so we don’t want to get rid of it. Instead I just shifted the “Nexus 4” title up a few pixels, changing the balanced 15px-15px into 13px-17px. NOW it looks centered in the main blue bar, and doesn’t look like it’s weakly slipping down the page.

4. We Get it With the Lines Already
Ok, this one isn’t that much of an optical illusion issue. Yes, the white diagonals are eating away at the most hierarchically important part of the page which could be fixed by layering some text shadows like we did before, but in this case the better solution is to just lose the lines.

Yes, we get that the gDevices are high tech, and edgy, and you’re intentionally thumbing your nose at the skeuomorphic fruit-bois, but in this case just be simple and bold. You don’t need that extra edginess, the slight bit of added interest is outweighed by the way it weakens the title of your flagship products. Androids UI is bold and edgy because of it’s stark modernism. You’re not selling the new Droid (yet). This is how Google makes a phone. Clean, simple, everything just works the way you want it.

Turntable.fm: Improve Your Algorithms or Songza Will Drink your Milkshake

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:39:00 -0500

The primary product of Turntable.fm (TT) is the curated music stream and that product is currently inferior to competitors such as Songza. The secondary product of providing a venue for aspiring DJs is often deleterious to the primary product by lowering the quality of the curated playlist. Nearly as bad, mediocre DJs prevent the quality of curated music from reaching its full potential.

To be successful Turntable.fm can’t just be crowdsourced music curation, it needs to be functionally meritocratic.

If TT can successfully provide a venue for aspiring DJs and keep a consistently high level of curation quality it could still meet it’s goals and beat it’s competitors.

Ideally the UX/UI would be entirely redesigned integrally with a rework of the reputation system, however even with the UI almost entirely unchanged a few tweaks to the algorithms and system could help TT become viable again.

Here are a few quick thoughts on algorithm design principles and some basic implementation suggestions:

Consistent Quality: Minimize Troll and Amateur DJs

DJs next play is locked 60 seconds before it plays, which DJs on deck can see. If 2 of 4 DJs on deck downvote before it plays that song is skipped. If their 2nd choice is also voted down their play is skipped and they take a hit to their DJ score. When a play isn’t vetoed the voting DJs have their DJ score affected by the outcome of the play.
All rooms have minimum DJ scores and/or room-admin nominated DJs.

Improved Identification of Pro DJs

Convert DJ score from an absolute accumulation of points to a dynamic score such as between 1 and 100.
DJ score unique to room.
Heart/Lame/Awesome/ ratio becomes primary DJ score determinant.
New/low-score DJs in the audience can virtually DJ: higher ranking DJs can see their next play selection and up/down vote it to affect their score.
Multilevel marketing! Seriously, hear me out: Higher level DJs that positively rate picks from a lower ranking DJs that then goes on to become a higher ranking DJ will also raise the score of the DJ that identified their talent. And have their scores hurt if they support a DJ that goes on to be a dud or troll.

These suggestions would change the nature of TT but if they were well balanced they could encourage vetting without enforcing conformity, improve the overall quality of the music, and make the social interaction even more fun and interesting.

Ultimately TT DJs make the primary TT product and unless that product is solid TT will fail. In many ways these sorts of changes would transform TT from a crowdsource system to a collective intelligence system.

"We’re much smarter than our politics suggest."

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:33:49 -0500

“We’re much smarter than our politics suggest.”

"Anything that can be designed must be designed."

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 22:44:00 -0500

“Anything that can be designed must be designed.”

- LKD

Mifflin Must Grow (Green)

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:14:00 -0500

This is an article I wrote published in The Isthmus in 2010 about a future vision for the Mifflin Neighborhood. The issue is still alive with the Downtown Plan still up for debate.

The greatest and greenest opportunity for the healthy growth of Madison is an area ignored for decades: West Mifflin Street.

In the center of the downtown are over four full blocks and seven partial adjacent blocks of deteriorating, poorly maintained housing that could become the most vibrant, green and exciting area of the city.

Built in the early 1900s as blue-collar housing, this area in the 400-500 blocks of West Mifflin slowly transitioned to student housing over the last half of the 20th century. The neighborhood’s cultural die was cast with the student movements of the Vietnam War, but today it has more in common with tailgating than counterculture.

As a neighborhood Mifflin is reasonably successful, but the opportunity cost of its land and location is staggering. We could prevent an amount of suburban sprawl equal in size and population to Middleton if Mifflin were allowed to redevelop carefully. The character and culture of Mifflin must be preserved, and we can do it while still creating housing and office space for 22,000 new downtown residents.

As a development precedent for a new Mifflin Street we need look no further than its cultural precedent: Greenwich Village. Bleecker Street or a West Village block party exhibits the same character as Mifflin, only more so. We can improve on this urban design and apply it to the Mifflin neighborhood.

Dense, green mixed-use redevelopment could allow tens of thousands more to walk to work in the new Mifflin neighborhood employment center, the downtown or university. Dense, affordable multi-unit housing uses less material, less energy and far less land than single-family homes. Having more people downtown exponentially improves local businesses and increases the efficiency of infrastructure.

With 22,000 more residents within easy walking distance, the Mifflin Co-op wouldn’t have closed.

The Vietnam War of today’s generation of college student is the environmental movement, and once again the Mifflin neighborhood is on the front lines. It isn’t as sexy as bioreactors or electric cars, but dense green development has unequaled environmental benefits. The values and ideals from the ‘60s and ‘70s shouldn’t be sealed in an urban display case; they should be lived.

The Revolution We Need Isn't At The Ballot Box, it's To The Ballot Box

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:51:00 -0600

We have highly dysfunctional public policy in this country. Despite the incredible work being done to make government more transparent, responsive, and honest, our political dysfunction has been getting worse and will continue. Why? Because politicians and political organizations are competing, specializing and generally getting better at getting elected. That means closer races, a more divided and negatively motivated (read: scared/angry) electorate.

Dysfunctional policy will continue to be made while we’re limited to the dysfunctional politicians that are selected by a dysfunctional voting system. Every political problem in this country would be lessened, some even immediately solved, by a voting system that allowed for better candidates.

Plus, if you like warm-and-fuzzy concepts like “liberty” and “democracy”, our voting system is the very worst.

Let’s look at why our voting system is so ineffective, then discuss some alternatives.

FIRST PAST THE POST (FPTP)
In U.S. Federal elections, and in most elections nationwide, we use First Past the Post, an archaic type of plurality voting.

Concept
Each voter selects a single candidate. The candidate with the most votes wins.

Good
It works perfectly when there are only two candidates. Conceptually simple.

Bad
It doesn’t work well when there are more than two candidates, and there are always more than two candidates. It also requires two completely separate elections.

Due to Duverger’s Law, FPTP leads to a two-party monopoly, as we’ve seen for almost all of our history.Two parties in power will continually shift to each represent 50% of the electorate, preventing the creation of “third parties”.
- Two party systems encourage deadlock and obstructionism, as one party only has to be less bad than the other party. “Standing up for your beliefs” to shut down compromise becomes absolutely necessary in many cases to keep your “base” motivated.
- Two party systems will tend to only advance two solutions to a given problem. Those solutions are tailored to each appeal to 50% of the electorate, which generally has nothing to do with how “good” those solutions are.
Most voters must vote tactically. That is, they don’t vote for who they want, they vote for who they like best that is “viable”, or very often they vote for the least bad candidate. If you ever hear someone say anything like “Don’t throw your vote away.” “viable candidate” “Anybody But X” “I don’t really like X but he’s way better than Y” these are all endorsements of tactical voting. Tactical voting is not democratic as it forces you to choose between voting for who you want or whether you want to affect the outcome of the election. You can’t do both in FPTP.
With multiple candidates, a majority is no longer necessary. A four-candidate race could be won with the support of only 25% of the electorate. It goes against the ideals of a democracy if a very small minority can pick its leaders.
Requires Party Primaries. Party primaries exacerbate all of the problems listed above, encouraging oppositional, us-versus-them political sport designed to win elections, not govern well. It is also a highly costly and unnecessary expense for all levels of government.

First Past the Post Summary
Behavioral psychology and economics push FPTP systems toward forming two dominant parties, which then spit out candidates picked and designed to win elections. There is very little incentive to govern well, or compromise when you only need to be less bad than your single competitor in the eyes of 50% of the population. Fear and anger become major motivators for voters. FPTP is the very worst voting system in use today, but because no currently elected federal politician would be reelected with a better system, they have an incentive to fight to keep it.

RANKED PAIRS
A more modern system, Ranked Pairs is a form of Preferential Voting and a Condorcet Method.

Concept
Voters list candidates in order of preference. Each pair of candidates is compared in head-to-head matchups to identify which candidate is preferred over all other candidates.

Good

Identifies the most popularly supported candidate.
Simple, intuitive, and conceptually popular.
No Tactical Voting, it can’t be “gamed”.
Voters can fully express their preferences with their vote. Fully democratic.
Many candidates can enter the race at no risk of “stealing”, “spoiling”, ”hurting” or otherwise negatively effecting the chances of other candidates.
Primaries become not only unnecessary, but may become detrimental to parties.
- Since parties are not harmed by endorsing multiple candidates there is no need to select a single representative.
- Diminishes undue party influence.
- General election candidates no longer have to first “appeal” to a passionate minority of the electorate.
- Optionally, candidates can self-identify party affiliation on ballots, listing all parties they agree with.
- One less election in every race in the country would save meaningful amounts of money at all levels of government.
Less negative campaigning. Negative ads are pervasive because two-candidate races are zero-sum. If the other guy looks worse than you, you’ll win. When you can safely vote for whomever you please with no fear of “wasting” your vote because “viability” is no longer an issue, elections will have many candidates. When there are many candidates, throwing political mud will get both the thrower and the target candidates dirty, to the advantage of the “clean” candidates, thus discouraging mud-slinging.
Can be used just as successfully in multi-seat elections. For example, an election where the top three candidates get seats in a legislative body.

Bad
Not conceived of in the 1700’s.

Ranked Pairs Summary
Ranked Pairs is my voting system preference because it is conceptually simple and arguably the “best” or one of the best modern systems. It allows voters to fully express their preferences with their vote, and will lead to more substantive elections with a broader and deeper range of candidates. (For a wonkish dive into how Ranked Pairs compares to other voting systems, learn more about the different voting system “criteria” here.)

SCHULZE METHOD
Another modern system, the Schulze Method is also a form of Preferential Voting and a Condorcet Method.

Concept
Voters list candidates in order of preference. Each pair of candidates is compared in head-to-head matchups, then those match-ups are composited based on preference-strength to compare relationships between candidates, selecting the candidate at the top of the strongest relationship chain or “path”. (This method is often called the Path Method).

Good

See the Good list under Ranked Pairs above.
Allows for listing candidates as equals, ie candidates can “tie” for 3rd favorite, etc.

Bad

Not conceived of in the 1700’s.
Complex conceptually and difficult to explain.

Schulze Method Summary
Possibly “the best”, Schulze is the most used by wonky organizations. The winner results are nearly identical to Ranked Pairs but in some rare virtual-tie/circulary instances (circularity is when A beats B, B beats C, but C beats A) Schulze may produce a different winner. Ranked Pair solves circularity by “locking-in”, Schulze solves it by “beatpathing”. I wouldn’t advocate Schulze for public elections because of its conceptual complexity. Ranked Pair is as good or nearly as good, but conceptually much easier to grasp for the average voter. I only mention Schulze out of obligation to the wonks out there, and to explain why it is inferior for public elections.

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING (IRV)
A somewhat modern system, Instant Runoff Voting is also a form of Preferential Voting and a partial (the less important part) Condorcet Method. IRV is used in many countries and some states and municipalities in the U.S.A.

Concept
Voters list candidates in order of preference. The candidate with the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated, repeating until there is only one candidate left. This simulates holding repeated Runoff Elections in a single election, hence the “Instant” runoff moniker.

Good

Simple, intuitive, conceptually popular.
Less Tactical Voting than FPTP.
Many candidates (more than two) can enter the race at little risk (no risk for Schulze and Ranked Pair) of “stealing”, “spoiling”, ”hurting” or otherwise negatively effecting the chances of other candidates.
Primaries not only unnecessary, but detrimental to parties.
- Since parties are not harmed by endorsing multiple candidates there is no need to select a single representative.
- Diminishes undue party influence.
- Optionally, candidates can self-identify party affiliation on ballots.
- One less election in every race in the country would save meaningful amounts of money at all levels of government.
Less negative campaigning. Negative ads are pervasive because two-candidate races are zero-sum. If the other guy looks worse than you, you’ll win. When you can safely vote for whomever you please with no fear of “wasting” your vote because “viability” is no longer an issue, elections will have many candidates. When there are many candidates, throwing political mud will get both the thrower and the target candidates dirty, to the advantage of the “clean” candidates, thus discouraging mud-slinging.
Can be used just as (relatively) successfully in multi-seat elections, where say the top three candidates get seats in a legislative body.

Bad

Doesn’t always Identify the most popularly supported candidate.
Can encourage Tactical voting. It is more difficult than FPTP, but possible to “game”.
It does not fully capture the intent of voters, and is thus not fully democratic.
IRV selects the candidate with the highest number of passionate supporters, not the candidate most preferred versus all other candidates. In an election with 4 candidates, for example, if 100% of voters list candidate A as their 2nd choice, but 33% list candidate B as their first choice, 33% list candidate C as their first choice, and 33% list candidate D as their first choice, candidate A couldn’t be elected even though they are clearly the consensus candidate. Ironically they would be the first eliminated.

Instant Runoff Voting Summary
IRV is a vast improvement over FPTP, but it is still a deeply flawed system that not only selects winners that are less popularly supported than other candidates, it also allows for tactical voting which prevents the true expression of preference when voting that is required in a democracy.

SUMMARY
Our government is functionally broken because the people that control it are selected by a fatally flawed voting system from the 1700s. Our voting system not only does a poor job of picking winners from candidates, the most devastating defeat is that the people best suited to govern simply don’t run because they couldn’t be elected. If you ask a highly-intelligent, motivated person that cares deeply about their city, state or nation if they would consider running for public office, 99% of the time that person will laugh at you. They’re intelligent people and almost no intelligent person would run when they have no chance of winning. (Unless they were narcissistic, wealthy, or ideally both. See: modern American politics).

If we adopted a preference voting system, particularly Ranked Pairs, it would create a political renaissance in this country. The oppositional battle-lines drawn on every political issue would be replaced by a myriad of options that more truly reflect the totality of policy choices available to us.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this issue, it’s at the heart of every single stalemate, inaction and obstruction we see in the political world. And worst of all we’re robbed of the best individuals who should be leading us.

If you see the wisdom in this, don’t just spread the word to your friends (which you should do), bring this up with your city council members and mayor. The two largest national political parties and their state branches have a direct disincentive to see this crucial reform happen. You won’t find stronger boosters to a system then those who’s jobs rely on it, no matter how “good” they may be; they were picked because they are true-believers. Local politicians are generally least influenced by party affiliation and tend to be more consensus driven than divisive; we should convinced them first. When people see the incredible results of preference voting first-hand at the local level they will soon demand it at the state and national levels. So get out there and get your neighborhood behind it and the city will follow.

We’ll never stop needing to Throw the Bums Out as long as our voting system only selects bums.

Will Non-State Currencies Emerge in Our Lifetime?

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:41:00 -0600

In this blog post by Fred Wilson, he makes the bold assertion “I’m confident we’ll see the emergence of currencies that are not controlled by nation states in my lifetime.”

I love the Brave New World sentiment, but I think the factors that drove us to state-based currencies are actually increasing, not decreasing. Let’s look at what factors made state-based currencies attractive, then at what the future may hold for each factor.

Why State-Based Currencies are the Norm

Enduring Institutions - States (still) rarely default, are sold, collapse, cease issuing their currency. Long-term stability is huge.
Size - States are the biggest things out there. You want to buy into something large from a market cap and quantitative sense.
Public Process - A large public administrative process is generally more stable, and certainly more predictable (long term) than private processes.
Market Strength - The USA demands all taxes and fees be paid in dollars, as are all government (and contracted) salaries. That is peerless market shaping power. Ideally you want a currency to be bolstered by having a use-value, and the fact that your taxes must be paid in your state-currency grants an incredible tangible value. Fiat currencies are largely without use-value, but if the US took in around $2,670 billion in taxes last year, that’s a lot of tangible use-value.
Regulation, Law - Ultimately, we still live in a world of near-absolute state sovereignty. Just or unjust, laws and regulations will always favor the state currencies, if not outright banning other currencies (could still happen with Bitcoin in the US, though unlikely).

How Will the State to Non-State Balance Shift in the Future?

Enduring Institutions - States still seem like a good bet for stability vs. non-state, doesn’t look likely to change in our lifetime.
Size - States still win out here. If anything I think companies will shrink in size proportional to states, as “too big to fail” companies have expansionary growth limitations imposed (such as states not approving M&A).
Public Process - Both states and non-states orgs will become more public (Yes I’m talking about my startup and other B-Corps), I see this maybe as a draw.
Market Strength - States aren’t going anywhere, and their market strength isn’t either. As a % of world GDP I see them holding steady.
Regulation, Law - Also unlikely to change. The EU and Euro are rare exceptions of states giving up areas of sovereignty. I don’t see that changing, and even if it did whatever unified mega-states emerged I would doubt they would cease exercising the vast economic benefits gained by preferring their own currencies and regulating competitors.

In general, I believe states are becoming stronger institutions which will help state-backed currencies. Gov 2.0 will continue helping accelerate their strengthening. So I don’t believe the balance will shift away from state currencies toward non-state currencies.

That said, I do think pseudo-off-balance-sheet “currencies” like Time Banks have a future because they so well exploit inefficiencies/regulations in many current systems.

staff: Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:36:56 -0600

staff:

Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives in a concerted effort to protect the Internet. Extraordinary. There’s no doubt that we’ve been heard.

So just to keep you updated: The well-intentioned, but immensely flawed “Stop Online Piracy Act” is still in the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was yesterday and now members will debate and bring amendments to the bill. The Committee will reconvene in a few weeks — the date has yet to be scheduled. Nothing has been brought to a final vote. Everything is still very much in play. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going on and what you can do to help. But for now, we want to thank you.

One encouraging thing we heard yesterday:

I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor. I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.

— Representative Darrell Issa

We also want to express our tremendous gratitude to our friends at Mobile Commons who, on 30 minutes notice, hooked us up with their amazing platform (and provided their expertise) to automatically connect callers with their Representatives.

Our Ballot Box Blog: Massive bug now fixed: anonymous votes incorrectly calculated

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:51:05 -0500

Our Ballot Box Blog: Massive bug now fixed: anonymous votes incorrectly calculated:

ourballotbox:

Huge. Embarrassing. We’ve very very sorry. Apparently, Anonymous votes weren’t being counted in the vote totals. Terrible, right?

It’s fixed now, and all of the 1,085 anonymous votes are now correctly counted. This was a hard message to write, but not a hard message to decide to write. Even…

"The innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm..."

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 10:15:00 -0500

“The innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises..partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have a long experience of them.”

- Startup advice from Machiavelli

Madison Startup Incubator 94 Labs Launches 14 New Companies - Beta Invites

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:49:00 -0500

I had an amazing time at 94labs launch day at the shiny new Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. There were some really impressive startups. My highlights below. And of course sign up for these sweet betas.

Shindig
Great idea: Like a Kickstarter for concerts, with Shindig you can pre-pay for a potential band+venue. If enough people pay it’s a no-brainer for the band and venue, and of course you only pay if the show actually happens. Really a cool idea, not only for the obvious reason of better delivering bands to needy fans, but it would also give a much stronger sense of ownership to the fans that effectively organized it. You can’t be a superfan anymore unless you made the concert. Their UI video is killer, but you’d have to be an investor to see it until they launch. Really cool social potential for mashup-happenings.

Circuit
Simple idea but powerful: Online, collaborative circuit design with a PRINT button and a credit card slot. Why solder all that junk together when you and your friends can design your own circuit boards online (maybe with some public feedback, no?) and for a few quid have it shipped to you in days. Makers rejoice.

Data Check Pro
This might not seem like the sexiest product but a shit-ton of food gets thrown away at grocery stories with expired inventory. With Data Check Pro, grocers can do dead simple inventory checking and tracking to mark down and move waning goods. Real saved food. Real recovered sales. Real simple.

Jawnt
The most interesting and creative of the batch, Jawnt took me a few minutes to fully grok. Like an airbnb for insider tours on demand, Jawnt creates an entire new market, both supply and latent demand. Next time you go to Paris, on Jawnt you can browse the profiles of freelance Parisian tour guides all pitching different types of tours. So for maybe €10 you could get a serial entrepreneur to give you a walking tour of a startup-heavy area and introduce you to friends. Or a pastry chef to show you around their favorite patisseries. This could transform tourism overnight. But guys, you gotta improve the message! I think the concept of on demand insider personal tours would be thematically good marketing to explore. In fact maybe move away from the word “tour” entirely. Jawnt is more insider club guide than follow-the-fat-lady-with-the-red-umbrella tour. And make that symmetrical reputation system sing, you’re not a platform you’re a content provider.

It was a good day for startups, a good day for Madison, and an increasingly normal day for Madison startups. By the way, did you read about the itunes-killer, murfie, in the Wall Street Journal? I know where you’re buying your next album.