Voter Experience Framework

What does an election look like from the voter's side?

The VX Framework applies human-centered design to the full electoral journey. It gives campaigns, election administrators, and civic organizations a shared map of the voter's experience, and a workshop to explore it together.

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Seven stages. One journey.

Ambient Civic Awareness

The baseline relationship between citizens and civic life between election cycles.

Candidate and Issue Discovery

How voters and non-voters encounter candidates, parties, and issues.

Sensemaking and Decisioning

How voters weigh what they've learned and form a preference, or decide not to engage.

Registration and Logistics

Navigating eligibility, systems, and the practical steps of getting registered.

Casting Vote

The act of voting itself: early, by mail, or in person on election day.

Results and Reactions

Watching results arrive and processing what the outcome means.

Governance Experience

The ongoing relationship between voters and the officials they elected.

Campaigns, election administrators, and voters move through the same election with different priorities at nearly every stage. The voter is the only actor who experiences the full arc. VX makes those misalignments visible so they can be designed for.

Developed at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Harvard Ash Center.

"Elections are one of the greatest investments societies make in democracy. But winning an election and strengthening democracy are not automatically the same goal."

Professor Danielle Allen, Director, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation

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