2018 Midterm Elections Chatbot
For the 2018 midterm elections cycle, USA TODAY wanted to experiment with some alternative ways to inform and engage with readers with the latest information on political candidates, races and forecasting data.
The team decided a chatbot-like utility experience would be ideal as a friendly conversational tool to quickly navigate to desired information.
Although not a true AI chatbot, we designed pre-determined response options, allowing the reader to choose and go down a variety of conversation paths. This approach helped the consumer more quickly find and learn more about the overall national congressional landscape and dig deeper into state-level candidates and races.
Using the latest polling data, the experience also provided political forecasts and election predictions in the form of data visualizations, bar charts and detailed maps, commentary and direct related article links to USA TODAY news coverage.
This project was especially rewarding because it was a true cross-functional team effort, collaborating closely with the USA TODAY editorial staff, Design & UX, Product team, Brand Marketing, Storytelling Studio and Native app developers.
Special shout-outs to Mikey Vargas-Rodriguez, Rebecca Renner, Michael Varano, Stan Wilson, Caroline Simon, Patty Michalski, Kristen DelGuzzi, Larry Aasen, Brooks O'Brien, Christine DiGiovacchino, Kara Chiles and Reid Williams.
