Your Privacy

This site uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience and deliver personalized content. By continuing to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies.
COOKIE POLICY

Associations

Modernizing an Association’s Balloting System to Deepen Member Engagement

Modernizing an Association’s Balloting System to Deepen Member Engagement

Maintaining an active association requires effective member engagement to provide ongoing value and operational growth. One of the key areas that associations engage members is through the voting process. An association balloting system must work efficiently on the backend while providing an easy voting experience on the frontend. Without a well-designed user experience that meets modern users’ demands, associations risk a lack of member engagement and operational inefficiencies leading to a disengaged membership. So, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) needed to update their member experience by improving their balloting system and processes, they turned to UDig for support — and found a way forward.

How We Went from Ideas to Impact

The Idea

Modernize a Manually Intensive, Outdated Balloting System

AASHTO has a large membership base of 1.3 million individual members. To operate efficiently and productively, AASHTO relies on an active member population to vote on key priorities across various membership committees. However, their 15-year-old system didn’t meet their membership’s modern requirements and lacked an intuitive user experience (UX). This led to frustration when volunteers accessed the platform — from members and staff alike — resulting in a decline in member engagement across their balloting initiatives and a drag on their operations.

Further, improving member engagement was a critical factor of their long-term strategic plan. To support this priority, AASHTO has upgraded their website to improve their member experiences. However, the current ballot system couldn’t seamlessly merge with their new design. Any out-of-the-box software solutions either didn’t integrate with the new website or required multiple, costly workarounds to support their needs.

These challenges meant that AASHTO: 

  • Was experiencing a drop in balloting engagement from their membership, affecting their ability to act on voted measures 
  • Needed up to 30 hours to design a single ballot, pulling their nimble staff away from other essential responsibilities 
  • Was unable to edit created and saved ballots, requiring a technical team to make changes on the backend 
  • Had inaccurate data, causing inefficiencies and inaccuracies in the balloting creation and voting experience 
  • Had a patchwork of features that only worked on certain browsers, resulting in association staff often needing to switch browsers when creating ballots 
  • Was stuck in a costly process whenever creating and changing ballots, due to business teams needing to make their own system changes

The Process

Customize Their Balloting System to Support Their Strategic Plan’s Vision

In order to meet AASHTO’s goals, we knew we had to help them overcome their breadth of challenges while supporting their strategic plan’s goals for member engagement. To do so, we partnered closely with them, gaining an in-depth understanding of their various priorities, as well as the modern experience their members desired.  

After analyzing their existing challenges, we knew any solution we designed had to:  

  • Overcome the cumbersome technical debt and system dependencies they inherited after 15 years of maintaining and updating an outdated platform 
  • Flow seamlessly into the new website design, both in function and aesthetics 
  • Enable AMS integration with their existing system with the flexibility to integrate with future systems
  • Streamline data entry and management 
  • Create a workflow for adding people to a committee, creating an admins account, and gaining access to the ballot 
  • Support a collaborative platform that enables different people to seamlessly make updates 
  • Enable a concurrent ballot system for designing and managing multiple member ballots 

As we designed their solution, we were by their side at each step, providing the support and guidance they needed at any point. This proactive relationship meant that we were able to: 

  • Engage in weekly check-ins with their stakeholders and users to inform real-time needs and solutions  
  • Provide quick updates when our client needed them, ensuring prompt action and solutions 
  • Talk through concerns or priorities, and support evolving operational priorities 
  • Pivot quickly when unexpected challenges or needs arose

The Impact

A Time-Saving Balloting System and Engaged Membership Base

Today, AASHTO has improved member engagement across their balloting experiences. They now have a scalable, flexible tool that integrates seamlessly into their new and existing systems, supporting a consistent UX that has modernized how they work. The process for creating a ballot has also greatly simplified: What used to take up to 30 hours, now takes less than a couple of hours, freeing their staff to work on other priorities. Drop-down menus auto-populate fields, ensuring consistency in messaging and ease of creation. Concurrent ballot capabilities maximize how easily they can capture votes from multiple committees simultaneously, while supporting proxy voter requirements. Rather than address multiple solutions when problems arise with the association balloting system, they have one location for fixing issues, greatly streamlining how they work. Across their association, AASHTO has transformed their operations and deepened member engagement while setting themselves up to adapt to tomorrow’s demands. 

  • How We Did It
    Application DevelopmentApplication IntegrationApplication ModernizationUX/UI Design
  • Tech Stack
    C#HasuraKubernetesPostgresReact (JavaScript)

Digging In

  • Data & Analytics

    Improve Member Experience: Maximize Engagement & Value for Associations

    As you know, member engagement is key to providing value and retaining members over time. However, you must also recognize that member needs and preferences are evolving rapidly, especially as they desire more seamless digital experiences. Additionally, member expectations for personalized, omnichannel interactions have risen in recent years, and this means that associations must strategically […]

  • Associations

    Holiday Showcase: Top 3 Takeaways for Association Leaders

    After Thanksgiving this year, I attended the 35th Annual Holiday Showcase presented by the Chicago Association Forum (AF). Historically known as an event for meeting planners to meet with tourism and convention bureaus, AF has made the event a draw for all Association and Membership organization professionals. Topics involving leadership, technology, strategy, disruption, looking forward, […]

  • Data & Analytics

    A Guide to Data Strategy Success in Your Association

    While countless organizations aim to harness the potential of data, few possess a clear strategy to transform raw information into actionable insights that fuel their operations and marketing efforts. Don’t fall into the trap of investing in limited, tactical solutions.

  • Associations

    3 Takeaways from ASAE’s Annual Conference

    The ASAE community gathered in Atlanta this year at the annual conference to network, educate, and celebrate Associations, Membership Organizations, and Nonprofits. “Shape Your Purpose” was the overall theme of the event, and it was evident in all areas of the conference that attendees were focused on discussing and learning from each other how to […]

  • Associations

    6 Takeaways from the Data-Driven Leadership Program

    Often we use the word leadership in the association and nonprofit space. The missions, values, structures, and reasons for being an association are about leadership. Thought leadership to educate and affect a profession, advocacy leadership to influence and support important decisions and volunteer leadership to guide and direct the organization to this success. So, when […]

  • Data & Analytics

    Data-Driven Leadership: Leveraging Data to Drive Success

    In today’s business environment, organizations need an integrated approach to leadership, change management and data analytics. This presentation and panel covers why data matters, how to use data to better understand your members, and how to create a data-driven culture to make better decisions.

  • Associations

    The Importance of Data-Driven Leadership for Associations

    Your members expect a seamless, personalized digital experience: is your association poised to deliver? Data-driven leadership –defined as the process of using data to inform and guide decision-making–is key for positioning your association for future-focused success. By implementing a data strategy designed to help you make sense of your member data, associations can gain insights […]

  • Associations

    Why You Need a Data Strategy Before Going All-In on a New AMS

    Data is everything when it comes to managing your associations’ membership. It’s the lifeblood of an organization, providing insights into member engagement, event attendance, financial performance, and much more. Association Management Systems (AMS) play a vital role in managing your member data, but without a smart data strategy to build upon, an AMS can quickly […]

  • Automation

    What Do Associations Need to Know About RPA?

    Robotic Process Automation (RPA) might sound like a term straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s very much a reality in today’s digital age. As businesses and industries evolve, the need for automation becomes paramount. Here’s a deep dive into RPA and its transformative potential, specifically in the Association space. What is RPA? RPA […]