Summary insights Adult learners are self-directed, goal-oriented, and are driven by learning what is relevant to them. These principles tell us that poll workers are more likely to learn what they need to do and carry out the right procedures at the right time when they have guiding principles to work from, and get practice performing procedures in realistic situations. Adults learn through experience. When following instructions, people in the U.S. tend to read a step and then follow it, rather than reading all of the steps and then performing the task having reviewed the entire job. So, people working in what can be high-stress, high stakes situations in vote centers need the right materials at the right level at the right time. There is a large body of literature from instructional design and technical communications on how best to write and present information to users who are reading to as election workers are. NIST has published a version of the most important do, guidelines in NIST IR 7519, Style Guide for Voting System Documentation. They include: Write the documentation to specific users and address one group of users at a time. Organize the information to meet on tasks. users’ needs, focusing users’ Use simple words and avoid jargon. Write directly to users, using active voice. Keep instructions short and simple. In this project, we learned that California election officials expect that recruiting and managing vote center staff will be different from precinct-based polling. In the California 2018 statewide primary, this was true for the first 5 counties to implement the Voters Choice Act. Vote center staff is likely to be: long-term temporary workers, hired full time for the duration of early voting, rather than one-day paid volunteers sourced from a pool of known workers who are already known working more as voter through all of the steps “customer service,” processing each of voting, rather than staffing a particular station related to a step in the process. In this project, we sought to apply adult learning principles and cross-discipline insights to materials for vote center workers. We rethought the role of reference documentation and checklists in polling places, and reconfigured materials.
Summary insights Adult learners are self-directed, goal-oriented, and are driven by learning what is relevant to them. These principles tell us that poll workers are more likely to learn what they need to do and carry out the right procedures at the right time when they have guiding principles to work from, and get practice performing procedures in realistic situations. Adults learn through experience. When following instructions, people in the U.S. tend to read a step and then follow it, rather than reading all of the steps and then performing the task having reviewed the entire job. So, people working in what can be high-stress, high stakes situations in vote centers need the right materials at the right level at the right time. There is a large body of literature from instructional design and technical communications on how best to write and present information to users who are reading to do, as election workers are. NIST has published a version of the most important guidelines in NIST IR 7519, Style Guide for Voting System Documentation. They include: Write the documentation to specific users and address one group of users at a time. Organize the information to meet users’ needs, focusing on users’ tasks. Use simple words and avoid jargon. Write directly to users, using active voice. Keep instructions short and simple. In this project, we learned that California election officials expect that recruiting and managing vote center staff will be different from precinct-based polling. In the California 2018 statewide primary, this was true for the first 5 counties to implement the Voters Choice Act. Vote center staff is likely to be: long-term temporary workers, hired full time for the duration of early voting, rather than one-day paid volunteers sourced from a pool of known workers who are already known working more as “customer service,” processing each voter through all of the steps of voting, rather than staffing a particular station related to a step in the process. In this project, we sought to apply adult learning principles and cross-discipline insights to materials for vote center workers. We rethought the role of reference documentation and checklists in polling places, and reconfigured materials.