Portfolio
PolitiFact: Election Cycle UX
PolitiFact was one of the most visited political fact-checking sites on the web during the 2016 presidential election cycle, drawing millions of readers seeking accountability journalism at scale. The platform rated political claims using its signature Truth-O-Meter, tracked candidate promises in real time, and operated across a network of state-level editions, all running on a shared codebase requiring tight coordination between editorial and development teams.
Key Takeaways
- Built a working HTML/CSS/JS prototype to validate how users track real-time data on a politically sensitive page, catching things no static mockup of the era could have surfaced. Building in the Medium ↓
- Converted a passive hero-heavy homepage into a content-dense editorial layout, positioning newsletter signup at peak engagement to grow the platform's direct audience. Homepage Redesign ↓
- Led a visual modernization sprint ahead of the 2016 election cycle, producing responsive Truth-O-Meter mockups validated across both desktop and mobile. Truth-O-Meter ↓
- Designed a fresh set of branded Truth-O-Meter assets for the incoming administration, optimized for open graph sharing and updated to a contemporary visual language. New President Meters ↓
Building in the Medium
During the 2016 election cycle, long before AI-assisted design tools entered the conversation, I needed to validate whether users could process real-time data updates on a politically sensitive page without losing context or trust in the information. The tooling of the day was not going to cut it for this kind of test. Rather than mocking it up in a static design tool, I built a working HTML/CSS/JS prototype directly in the browser, wiring in live-updating data states and stress-testing how the layout held up under rapid content changes. The question was direct: could a user track a shifting data story without feeling like the page was breaking around them?
The outcome validated the approach and directly informed the final redesign, which launched under tight election-cycle deadlines and became one of the most visited pages on the platform during that period. Building in the actual medium surfaced things no static mockup at the time could have caught, and that remains true regardless of what the tooling looks like today.
Homepage Redesign
The original layout (left) opened with a large static hero image that buried all meaningful content below the fold, leaving readers with no immediate reason to engage. The redesign (right) replaced the hero with a denser, editorially-driven layout - surfacing the latest fact-checks, featured content blocks, and topical navigation immediately on load. A key strategic addition was the placement of an email newsletter signup prominently in the upper-right, a deliberate decision to convert high-intent readers into subscribers and grow the platform's direct audience at the point of peak engagement. The redesign launched ahead of peak election-cycle traffic, when politically engaged readership was at its highest, positioning it to turn those surges into a growing direct subscriber base at precisely the moment engagement mattered most.
Truth-o-Meter Quotes Redesign
With the 2016 election cycle on the horizon, I led an intensive mockup sprint to modernize PolitiFact's dated visual language. The explorations pushed toward a more dynamic, editorial aesthetic - introducing structured content tagging to improve discoverability, tighter responsive layouts optimized for mobile readers, with each iteration validated across both desktop and mobile to ensure the design held at every breakpoint, and an overall look and feel befitting one of the country's most trusted names in political journalism.
Footer Redesign
The original PolitiFact footer was a chaotic afterthought - unbranded, unstructured, and offering readers no clear path forward once they reached the bottom of the page. The redesign transformed it into a fully organized, on-brand destination with clearly grouped navigation columns covering State Editions, Special Editions, Policy, and more - alongside a prominent newsletter signup CTA. The responsive version carried that same structure cleanly into mobile, using stacked expandable sections to preserve usability without sacrificing the brand presence established on desktop.
New President Truth-o-Meter designs
PolitiFact had long featured a custom Obama Promise Meter - a branded, stylized tracker purpose-built to follow the 44th President's commitments from campaign trail to oval office. When the 2016 election delivered its... verdict, the platform needed something new. I was tasked with designing a fresh set of Truth-O-Meter assets for the incoming administration - optimized for open graph sharing, updated to reflect a more contemporary visual language, and built to weather whatever the next four years had in store.