Capitol Votes
Situation
The sponsor of Capitol Votes came to us needing to provide access to detailed information on legislative sessions, bills, votes, and more for the state of California in a straightforward user interface with a clean, simple design. In addition, the site had to provide a simple data entry content management system (CMS) to be accessed by several security levels of volunteers and employees.
"For more than two years, we worked with Tuitive to deliver many phases of the Capitol Votes project. Our initial goal was to identify a reliable development partner who understood the importance of collaboration and how to balance the priorities of many competing stakeholders. The project also required a highly attentive project manager and a first class team of skilled online developers. Tuitive delivered in spades!"
Process
After wireframing, user testing, and visually designing this web application for maximum user experience, Tuitive began complex development work. This application needed to not only be useful for front-end users (those who would read about, discuss, and track state legislation), but also be easy to use for back-end users (those who would be entering information on legislators, voting, and bills into the CMS). Tuitive worked with the project’s database developer, located in Turkey, to integrate existing and historical state data into the new ExpressionEngine CMS. Features of Tuitive’s development work include multi-site management from within one CMS, custom ExpressionEngine add-ons to interface with external MSQL databases, and heavy use of Memcached to optimize performance levels. In addition, we spent months refining details for the application post-launch to fit additional uses. We also provided the sponsor with extensive documentation detailing cloning the site for additional states.
Results
Since the launch of CapitolVotes.org, we have used this design and development platform to build legislative tracking sites for South Carolina, Alaska, and Idaho. There are plans to use the platform for additional states as well as funding becomes available.
