Kenya Election 2022

Role: Senior Product Designer in co-collaboration with East Africa (Nairobi) Visual Journalism Design and NEWS teams.

As part of a wider team of designers across BBC NEWS in Africa, we were tasked with developing the look and feel, and content for the production of our coverage of the Kenya Election across online and TV platforms.

I took on the lead role of co-leading the digital design of the result page that relayed the information in an easily navigable way, the policy/manifesto guide and the design language around the identity for the election coverage.

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We conducted a competitive analysis to establish the design and technical gaps in news media coverage of elections in Africa. Having supported BBC World Service election coverage in Ghana, Nigeria in 2019, Uganda, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso in 2020 and those in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda in 2021, I was able to immerse myself in the editorial culture through a quasi-ethnographic study that gave me a broader view of the opportunities and constraints in the historical newsroom election coverage. I also researched design best practices and suitable data visualization tools and options to present the data.​​

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Election results dashboards were not commonly used during election coverage because of a lack of technical expertise and buy-in from stakeholders. Most websites were not responsive on mobile devices and therefore not suitable for African audiences, who mostly access the internet via mobile devices.

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The resulting page curated pre- and post-election content on one page while allowing for the different components to be embedded in different story pages as well. I helped to implement a crisp election visual identity to capture the audience's attention and differentiate BBC's election coverage from other content and competitors, strengthening the BBC brand. Design deliverables included wireframes and handoff links done using Adobe XD and separate UI assets.

We conducted user research & testing on varied proposed interfaces and went on to develop the one that allows the user to compare parties against each other on major issues with the least cognitive effort. Easily repurposed the design and built in a way to account for last-minute changes made by the political parties. The design team modified this for the 2023 Nigeria Presidential election.

The design accounted for a phased rollout of information on the user’s preferred candidate, which when results are announced will fill up accordingly allowing the user to understand the relevant information quickly and easily in context.

The brand application for the BBC's TV coverage of the elections across East Africa