310,000 people who are visually challenged, felt excluded from the election. According to a research, over 90% of the visually challenged people use screen reader software to “vocalize” various information from the internet in their everyday lives. However, this software vocalizes the textual information written on the HTML file, and it is not suited to vocalize PDF files. Nevertheless, it is required that the official election campaign bulletin containing all of the information about the candidate must be posted online as a PDF file. Although the right to vote is regarded as one of the most essential civil rights, people with heavy visual impairment were left behind, unable to obtain the most necessary information, who the candidates are, from online. Simply put, they are forced in an unequal state. As a major internet powerhouse, Yahoo Japan Corporation wanted to re-consider how an election should be, by bridging this information gap.
To present this issue, instead of a PDF, we launched a text-based microsite with every candidate’s information. However, at first glance, this website is in complete darkness with no comprehensible information/hierarchy available. All election information is written in black text on a black background. This site expresses the state for visually challenged, who cannot obtain information despite the information being there. First, the sighted visits the website hoping to obtain necessary election information, but experience inconvenience instead by not obtaining anything. Soon after, the sighted understands this situation “replicates” the current state of the visually challenged, which eventually makes them realize the deepness of this unknown human rights problem. Nonetheless, through special software that vocalizes the non-visually information on the HTML, the visually challenged access the content without difficulty. By switching the positions of sighted and visually challenged, we provided a solution, and raised awareness about this overlooked information gap.
This campaign achieved phenomenal results.
-Achieved +250 media coverage including a special feature program in “Good Morning Japan”(NHK) which is the most major news program in Japan.
-After many stories being covered through the media, people voiced their opinion regarding the issue of information disparity of the visually challenged on social media. Pressured by this trending controversy, politicians approved this project and claimed to resolve this information disparity.
-Subsequently, every major political party (The Liberal Democratic Party, The Democratic Party, Komeito, Japanese Communist Party, Tokyoites First Party, Seikatsusha Network of Tokyo, Ishin Tokyo) promised to resolve this information disparity regarding the visually challenged people face. This became the first mark to resolve the disparity in election information.
-The voting rate in Tokyo increased by 17.9% than the previous election, and became the highest voting rate in the past 5 years. Early voting rate increased by 51.0% than the previous election. The number of votes casted became the highest ever in history, which exemplifies the success in stimulating voters’ interest in politics.
-+1,200,000 page views in 10 days since the launch.
-+6349% higher traffic than past similar website released by Yahoo Japan Corporation.
-Beyond the Metropolitan Election, the same initiative was continued for the National Election which happened in Nov. 2017.
