Digital canvassing
Keyboards for Kamala was a seed-stage startup and a practice in progress over perfection. We launched 2 web apps and trainings focused on helping regular citizens and organizations alike to create and share persuasive digital content.
🙋🏻♀️What’s digital canvassing?
It’s a way for anyone to leverage existing, persuasive, pro-candidate social media posts to swing the vote in their direction.
Context
We focused on helping Kamala win the 2024 presidential election.
My approach: design hammer
I joined less than 2 months before the election. With a short 10-12 hours a week to devote to our MVP, I asked the team to point me to their problems (i.e. nails) and I’d solve them (i.e. hammer). Low polish, high progress.
Result
In less than 55 hours, I established branding and UX across 2 web apps, public training materials, a written guide, and partnership flows. Some stuff was coded on the fly without any design input and I have mixed feelings about that, but I also recognize I wasn’t on this full-time and work must continue. It was strange loosening the reigns on polish, but that’s an MVP with seed money weeks before an unstoppable deadline.
Role & Team
Design Lead with 1 PM, 2 Engineers, 1 Marketing Manager, and 4 other part-timers.
What could have gone better?
More time and money would have helped up-level the polish and thoughtfulness of the experience.
The organization was pretty flat, meaning there was no clear person with final say over any one area.
Lots of thrash. Taking the time to agree on what the team needed from design would have fostered more focused, productive time, but thrash is inherent while figuring a product out.
What happened next?
We did our damnedest to swing the election and it didn’t go our way. I’m glad I got to work with this team, lean heavily into childless cat lady content as part of brand strategy, and take action rather than feel helpless.
The team has since scattered, but I’d happy swing the design hammer with them again any day.
