The Council on Foreign Relations had two main goals for its Election platform. First, to create a comprehensive and authoritative resource for readers with a non-partisan voice and second, to add key foreign policy issues to a domestic-centric conversation.

We knew users were overwhelmed by complex topics and the sheer number of candidates in the race. Most were unswervingly loyal to their parties, if not their favorite candidate, so we set out by making people our centerpiece.

We explored two distinct approaches: 1) A binary theme that made content digestible by dividing candidates into Republican vs Democrat and issues into for or against. 2) A shopping-inspired comparison tool for users researching different viewpoints.

In the end, we went with the third, modular approach that allowed our lean team to update the site quickly throughout all phases of the election. The first phase supported an exceptionally large field of candidates and scaled down over time with little disruption.