I planned and facilitated two workshops with the DebateBot team to rethink through project objectives, offerings of the current design, explore new feature ideas, and the implications that each design decision had on the user experience.

Ultimately, we wanted the application to be FUN! So, we began to think through some ways in which we could do that. The current design was optimized for desktop experiences, but we knew more people would use the app if it was available on mobile devices. We started thinking through how we could redesign the experience for mobile and what user flows could look like.

After we had a rough idea for the user flows, I took the team through story boarding exercises. Most of the DebateBot team were solely engineers, and had never experienced a design session before. We had a lot of fun playing into our imaginations for what feeling the application to evoke for users given different game approaches.

We floated the idea making it feel like a classic Zynga game (think Farmville), but ultimately landed on making it feel like the user was watching a primetime debate on television. The stakes would feel higher, people would be more engaged, and also take it more seriously.

Are you ready for the DebateBot Washington Governor debate? It's Dave Reichert vs Bob Ferguson.

How to play: You ask the questions and you pick the winner. The debate is blinded, so you won't know which candidate said what until after you've voted.

Before you get started, learn about the candidates.

Now it's time to choose a moderator and start asking your questions. If you can't think of any, there are pre-generated questions for you to choose from.

Remember, it's a blind debate, so you read the candidates' responses, and vote for your favorite. See who said what and who won at the end when you choose to end the debate.