The Campaign

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.

Creative Execution

The project website was unique in the sense that it served to function for two targets: for the visually challenged, the information architecture was comprehensively designed to ensure smooth access to necessary information. For the sighted, the website hidered them to obtain information at first, to create a pseudo experience of the visually challenged to further dramatize the disparity which exists in the real world. Every information available on the website is written as a text file so that any screen reader software can vocalize the content, regardless of the platform. To ensure this, every information on the official campaign bulletin was used, and reflected all 258 candidate information on the website. Every bit of updated information was reflected instantaneously, shortly after the results came out, making this website highly functional not just for the visually challenged, but also for the sighted people. The website was fully functional, and is ready to be applied for other election within Japan.

The project successfully instigated a huge nation-wide discussion among the citiezns in Japan. Achieved +250 media coverage including a special feature program in “Good Morning Japan”(NHK) which is the most major news program in Japan. Overall media impression totaled +257,300,000JPY(Approx. 2,330,000USD). 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. As a result, 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.

The project succeeded in publicly exposing the outdated law, which infringes the most fundamental right: voting. The campaign also deepened the understanding of election rights for people with disabilities and contributed to bring more matured democracy. The project began when people's attetion was targeted towards the Tokyo Metropolitan Election. Citizens noticed this disparity in voting rights of the visually challenged and protested on social, stimulating a nation-wide social debate. Ultimately, all political parties agreeed to resolve the problem. The project brought innovation by switching the experience of the sighted and the visually challenged on a website to address this issue.