As I described in my retrospective case study on my role in the 2024 elections, the CBS News web team was frustratingly limited at the time to long pre-existing web components.
However, by the 2025 elections, CBS News enjoyed a reorganized web engineering team, with the resources to execute a completely new data display component. This was to be a page-wide component, intended primarily for the homepage but usable on almost any page of the site, would support a continuously-updated horizontally-scrolling news feed, and results for three key races.
In this case study:
Final Designs Case Study
Below are the final, approved designs for the new component, shown at two representative breakpoints. In this scenario, the New York and New Jersey polls have closed, and the New York mayoral election winner has been declared.
Unused Election Day Concept Case Study
Below is an unused concept. I strongly felt that on election day, while polls are still open and no results have yet been reported, any news organization like CBS News ought to display general information about each race and its candidates. My thinking was that political junkies may be familiar with key races across the country, and perhaps even some of the candidates, but casual visitors to the CBS News site would benefit from some short explanatory text informing them why these races were important. The News editorial team strongly disagreed, and instead, a version of the above was displayed throughout election day, with empty race result tables.
Protoptype Case Study
I built a complex prototype, to demonstrate responsive behavior, interaction, and "signs of life" animation (such as a pulsing "live updates" flag, and visual indications of when the news feed is updated or incremental elections results are reported). I cannot present an archive of the actual prototype here in my portfolio, due to it using licensed webfonts, but the below screen recording will give some sense of its functionality.
Early Exploration Case Study
Below are two early unused (and unfinished) concepts. The first was an early attempt at condensing race information into the smallest cards possible, theoretically allowing for any number of them to be presented in a horizontally-scrolling unit. It would also include a streaming video component, which admittedly was an advanced feature unlikely to be technically feasible.
I am also glad the second rough draft shown below did not proceed from here. Original verbal descriptions of the project were for it to be closer to a sports-like personality model, whereas candidates would be presented individually as if they were professional sports stars, with attendant stats and figures. I gave it a shot, as you can see in the mockup below, but strongly felt that pro sports are no model for the democratic electoral process, and public servants are nothing like professional athletes.
