Political Colour -The Original VOFO shortcut

Political Colour is used in strong harmony through the logos of political parties from around the western world.

Political Colours are tied up strongly with political ideologies and sets of political ideas. They are usually used by political parties in an international pattern that has strong colour symmetries with a few notable exceptions such as the US and Switzerland where left wing parties are Blue and right wing Red..

Project Results -What voters thought was good and bad.

With the project research complete, it is now a good time to sum up what the research was looking at and in particular what the results found. Our focus groups found that when voters know little to nothing about a candidate, the current standard voter information is not at all “useful”.

Standard Voter Information layout used in Candidate Information Booklets and Pamphlets

Bad VOFO or Blurbs, statements and block text are considered hard to read and comprehend. Voters will instead just use the photo and the names of candidates to “shortcut” or infer political information .i.e She “looks” like a good leader, he has a strong “sounding” name. Instead, voters need information that is provided not only in terms of  adequate quantity, but also high quality and accessible information.

Example of Infographic VOFO Layout

Good VOFO or Infographic voter information is able to provide this as it increases the quality (more information) whilst also increasing the quality (structure, organisation, focus) and boosting accessibility (colourful, interesting, easy to understand, quick to use).

Tacking Aim at the Candidate Information Booklets

In order to limit the frame for this research, I decided to take aim at a particular part of Voter Information that for me exemplifies what bad VOFO looks like-namely the Candidate Information Booklet used in local elections. You can flick throughthe Dunedin 2010 candidate profiles in the Issuu above or visit the Web version here.

These information booklets(or pamphlets) are always very similar -they consist of the candidates name, a recent black and white photograph, the name of a ticket or declaration of “independence”.

The Political Compass

One important and growing theme in examples of good Vofo from around the world is the idea of getting voters and politicians alike to easily understand where each stands in a broad political spectrum.

Traditionally this is most easily explained as the Left-Right political continuum, as detailed by David MaCandless in this info-graphic. But often it is seen as having multiple stages as this spectrum shows.

Political Scientists often argue however that this over simplifies politics and doesn’t capture the broad ranges of issues, let alone political party positions that are represented.

What is VOFO

Vofo
Is a slang portmanteau combining the words Voter and Information used in the Political Communications world.

Although it represents a wide technical description of any information that assists voters in finding out who to vote for, vofo has become synonymous with Infographic and Interactive voter information.

A lack of good quality vofo is often cited by voters as the main reason for a lack of civic engagement, electoral participation and distrust in the democratic process in general.
This election is lacking some serious Vofo(Voter Information).