Design wasn’t my top priority when developing SimpleElection; instead I wanted to quickly test a premise that news outlets would be interested in using election-related widgets.
On election night, I updated an electoral college map for the presidential election and a counter marking the balance of Congress. I launched only a week prior to the election and eighteen sites used our widgets.
The project was prompted by a question asked during a panel at ONA12. A panel on presenting election data was asked “I’m not a programmer, is there any site that provides widgets for these examples?” This was met with a pause and an “I don’t know.”
I’m currently working on turning this product into a business venture with Electable.