Better Utah Institute Civic Engagement Toolkit
The Better Utah Institute is a nonpartisan nonprofit that educates Utahns on issues of public concern and increases civic engagement.
Where We Started
The Goal
The primary objective was to create an interactive and visually appealing toolkit that demystified civic engagement for users of all ages and backgrounds. The toolkit needed to:
- Break down complex civic topics into digestible and relatable content.
- Offer interactive elements to keep users engaged and foster retention.
- Be accessible to a wide audience with varying levels of digital literacy.
- Encourage actionable steps to participate in local governance and advocacy.
How We Got There
Project Phases
Research and Discovery
- Collaborated within the team to understand our audience and key objectives.
- Conducted user research to identify common barriers to civic engagement and knowledge gaps.
- Analyzed existing materials and outlined areas for improvement and opportunities for interactivity.
Design and Development
- WordPress Foundations: I Initially constructed the first two courses as individual WordPress pages. These were interconnected with a gamification system rewarding progress to encourage continued participation.
- Comprehensive Content Design: Merged text, video, and interactive elements into cohesive course modules that seamlessly guided users from foundational knowledge to actionable civic strategies.
Implementation
- Transition to LearnDash LMS: To accommodate a third course, the toolkit was migrated to LearnDash, enabling advanced gamification, scalability, and enhanced course tracking.
- User-Centered Design Enhancements: Refined navigation for accessibility, ensuring an intuitive experience for users of varying technical abilities.
- Iterative Feedback Integration: Incorporated user and stakeholder feedback through multiple rounds of testing, fine-tuning both content and technical functionality to ensure the toolkit met audience needs.
Project Infrastructure
The toolkit offers three courses:
- Civic Engagement 101: Introduces essential civic concepts and encourages users to create action plans.
- Getting to Know You: Focuses on connecting users with the toolkit and their role in civic processes.
- Utah Legislature 101: Details the legislative process in Utah and empowers users to influence policy effectively.
Course 1: Getting to Know You
This course has three lessons:
- “What kind of advocate are you?” is a personality quiz built in Gravity Forms to ascertain how users feel the most comfortable getting engaged. As users respond, they are filtered via conditional logic into one of nine personality types.
- “What’s your issue?” is another quiz built in Gravity Forms to help users narrow down their focus by encouraging them to pick just one advocacy issue. Users earn a badge and a certificate after this quiz.
- “Find your lawmakers” has users self-select their Utah lawmakers using a Gravity Form. A dashboard is created through automated processes and gamification with the lawmakers’ names, pictures, and links to their official government contact pages and our org email outreach buttons.
Course 2: Civic Engagement 101
This course introduces essential civic concepts and encourages users to create action plans. It involves interactive games, quizzes, and gamification badges, culminating in users creating an action plan PDF that includes the photos, names, and district numbers of the user’s lawmakers, along with a step-by-step plan of action created by the user. This PDF is dynamically generated using Gravity Forms and WordPress shortcodes to populate personalized information.
This course has five lessons:
- Get Informed
- Take Action
- Vote
- Build Relationships (with lawmakers)
- Take a Leadership Role
This game is the action for the “Vote” lesson. It aims to teach users that while there is an optimal path to casting their ballots, often there are still options available to vote if things don’t go perfectly.
I developed a game timeline, made the video in Adobe Premiere Pro using stock video footage and music, and created the interactivity using images as buttons using H5P, a free and open-source content collaboration framework based on JavaScript.
Course 3: Utah Legislature 101​
This course is organized in two sections:
- The Basics:
- Introducing the Utah Legislature
- The Real House (& Senate) Leaders
- How it works:
- Bills Bills Bills
- Easy as 1, 2, 3
- Committees
- Floor Time
- Get Engaged
- How a Bill Becomes a Law
This course is designed for anyone seeking a better understanding of how the legislative process works in Utah. By the end of the course, participants will know how the legislature operates, how bills become laws, and how to actively engage in the process.
Legislative Bill Types Matching Game
This H5P-powered memory game is designed to educate users about legislative bill types and their corresponding abbreviations. Players match each bill abbreviation (e.g., HB for House Bill, SB for Senate Bill) with its full legislative term, reinforcing their understanding of key legislative terminology. By pairing interactive gameplay with educational content, the activity transforms a potentially dry topic into an engaging learning experience, helping users retain critical information about the legislative process.
The Real House (& Senate) Leaders of Utah
This video, inspired by the iconic opening credits of the Real Housewives franchise, was created to educate Utahns about the leaders of their state legislature in an engaging and relatable way. I managed the entire production process, combining technical expertise with creative direction. Using Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, and the cartoon rendering program Toonly, I crafted a visually compelling and entertaining narrative.
In addition to the technical work, I coordinated a team of professional voice actors, ensuring that each role was performed with authenticity and personality. This collaborative effort brought the project to life, elevating the educational content with high-quality production values and a touch of humor. The result is a memorable and effective tool for civic education.
What’s on the Menu Game
The goal of this game is to educate users about the Legislative Rules Committee that decides what does or does not make it to the “menu” of the legislature.
I used cooking imagery in the lesson and created this game to look like a chalkboard menu. Users are instructed to drag and drop five bills of their choice to the menu and drag and drop the other bills in the “not on the menu” section.
The Outcome
The Civic Engagement Toolkit launched successfully, earning praise for its innovative and user-focused design.
Highlights included:
- Increased Engagement: Gamification and interactivity drove higher user retention and course completion rates.
- Positive Feedback: Users valued the accessible language and engaging visuals.
- Measured Impact: Early data showed increased community participation among users, validating the toolkit’s approach and effectiveness.
- Promotional Efforts and Media Coverage:
- To introduce the toolkit to the public, I wrote press releases and blog posts highlighting its features and accessibility. These efforts laid the groundwork for widespread recognition and outreach.
- The toolkit was featured on Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson, where I was interviewed to discuss its goals and impact, positioning the resource as a model for civic education.
- The project also appeared on RadioACTive, with a focus on its innovative use of gamification and interactive learning, though the segment is no longer available online.
