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An Interview with My Grandpa

My grandpa is 99 years-old and is an incredible inspiration to me and my entire family. He still lives at home, with a home health care worker, and he’s relatively mobile. This photo is from one of his recent trips outside of the house – but for the most part he doesn’t leave the house unless it’s to go on a walk or out for a doctor’s appointment.

Although he doesn’t leave the confines of his home very often, he’s in great physical and mental shape. He’s an avid reader and learner, including magazines, books, newspapers and the internet.

When I asked my grandpa about his voting experience, he told me he always votes absentee/by mail. He said the turning point for him, when he stopped going to the polls, was when he started to need a walker to move around. Interestingly, I suspect this was not primarily because his polling place was inaccessible, but more because he felt less confident about his walking ability.

Grandpa gets his news about candidates/elections through a variety of information sources. He said in particular he reads a lot of op-ed pieces in different online newspapers and forms his own opinions that way.

He couldn’t remember a time when his voting by mail experience could have been made easier or accessible. He doesn’t recall a time when he didn’t receive his ballot by mail or couldn’t fill out the ballot on his own. Luckily he still has his eyesight and can still write legibly with his hands, so I believe this is true.

Interestingly, he did say that he is a registered for one party, but predominantly votes according to the other party’s platform. When I asked him why he hasn’t officially registered for the other party, he told me: “it’s too much of a hassle to go through the paperwork.”

Aha, I thought! We have a design opportunity! I don't know what the steps are to change your party affiliation, but his perception is that it's too much trouble to deal with. How many other people might not be registering and/or casting a ballot because the perceived barriers are too high? What might we be able to do help show/explain the steps involved in registering and casting a vote? 

Want to interview someone you know about their voting experience? Download our Inspiration Interview Kit!

Comments

Jutta Jerlich

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March 08, 2012, 03:27AM

I also like talking to parents and grandparents to get their views and feelings - I think that we should build on this and involve them in what we do. We can certainly use the support!

And as see in your example, online research and "all this other new online stuff" was adopted and integrated by them. I really value that openness.

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Matt Ridenour

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February 28, 2012, 07:13PM

Ashley - Wonderful research! This is such a telling sentiment regarding your Grandpa's perception of changing party affiliations : “it’s too much of a hassle to go through the paperwork.” It does seem like a hassle to change. The interesting thing I noticed is your Grandfather generates his political knowledge online. I'm impressed that a 99-year old is so tech savvy! Seems like an on-line method may span generations more that I had thought. Your grandfather (and many more in his generation) could much more easily access and update their voting affiliation / preferences / address, etc. Is there a method for changing party affiliation on-line? Or is it only by mail-in?

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Ashley Jablow's reply to Jutta Jerlich's comment

Ashley Jablow

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February 28, 2012, 07:23PM

Thanks Matt! I'm glad you enjoyed this inspiration. To be honest, I'm not sure how to go about changing party affiliation - my hunch is that it actually is a paper-based process at least in California where I live. I think I chose my party affiliation when I got my driver's license at the dept of motor vehicles (which never quite made sense to me). But since you can vote however you want (regardless of your party affiliation), I'd bet that only the most motivated folks really ever bother with changing their party. So embedded in this question isn't just the issue of process, but also of mindset and attitude: if I can vote however I want, does the designation even matter?

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Ginny Redish

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February 12, 2012, 04:34PM

Thanks, Ashley, for this heart-warming story about your grandfather. (And I thank others who have given us personal stories. The people in these stories are the people whom this challenge is all about.)

The work that Dana Chisnell and I did a few years ago for AARP showed how diverse the people we call "older adults" are. To make that diversity visually obvious -- and to help developers think about all the people they are designing for, we developed a multifaceted model. The 4As model shows that we have to consider not only age, but also ability, aptitude, and attitude. I've just put up an inspiration showing and explaining that model. I called the inspiration: Older adults are not all alike.

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Ashley Jablow's reply to Jutta Jerlich's comment

Ashley Jablow

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February 13, 2012, 04:52PM

Terrific Ginny – I can't wait to check out your inspiration!

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Kam

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February 12, 2012, 10:43PM

Thank you for sharing, it's a very inspiring story. It makes me realize how serious the election problem is, since it becomes more and more obvious that it was never designed for people and to accommodate users, instead it is oriented to treat humans as numbers and votes.

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Paul Reader

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February 10, 2012, 10:33PM

Thanks for the very informative piece Ashley.
Again from experience here (in Australia) it is difficult to understand why there is a need to register for any particular affiliation.
Our registration is simply to place us on the roll of voters - nothing to do with who we might "follow" (in twitter terms).
Maybe this is another reason voting here seems so much easier.

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