How To Vote

I voted.

Being a geek, I took a keen interest on the touchscreen voting machine used in my county. There was a checkbox within the larger label for each option. This kept everyone safe from the common "finger slip" mistake that has plagued the touchscreen voting machines. I also took note of a window along the side, where I could watch my votes being recorded on the paper receipts. I feel pretty confident most voters will completely ignore this physical verification.

There were some parallels I drew between this and a recent interest of mine: touch screen interfaces. Voting machines might make us angry every few years, but mobile phones and PDAs annoy us each and every day. We're reaching a critical point in the cheapness of touchscreen displays, making them the inevitable first-class interface. We need to come to some standards and practices that give them the consistancy and expectedness that we get using our common interfaces today. At the same time, I'm glad to see a place where some creativity can happen seriously.