Capitol Words: A Dashboard for Exploring Congressional Records

An interactive dashboard that empowers users to search and understand the context of political discussions, promoting civic engagement and transparency.

Background

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom focused on investigative journalism and government accountability. Chartbeat provides real-time analytics for newsrooms, helping them understand how readers engage with content.

Together, they teamed up to make congressional discourse more searchable and accessible to the public.

The Problem

Understanding congressional conversations is difficult. Political language is dense, transcripts are massive, and most platforms aren’t built for public consumption. ProPublica and Chartbeat set out to change that by giving people a way to search and explore what Congress is saying—and who’s saying it—on the topics that matter most to them.

The Solution

I led the design of an interactive web dashboard that let users:

• Search by topic (e.g. “climate change,” “immigration”)

• See which members of Congress discussed it

• Explore the context and language used in those discussions

The interface combined search, filtering, and smart visualizations to make thousands of congressional records feel approachable and insightful.

Outcome

The tool became part of ProPublica’s civic engagement toolkit, offering an accessible way for the public to understand political discourse. It supported ProPublica’s mission to increase government transparency and provided a new model for interactive journalism.

My Role

I was the sole designer on this project, responsible for:

• Designing the entire UX of the dashboard—from early concepts to final visuals

• Partnering with journalists and engineers to align editorial, user, and technical needs

• Creating a clear, intuitive interface that helped users explore complex data without feeling overwhelmed

Reflections

This project taught me how to design for clarity in a high-stakes, data-heavy space. I had to balance editorial integrity, usability, and visual design while making complex political content feel approachable.

Overall, it was a reminder that good civic design is about access, trust, and intention.

Project Background

ProPublica, known for its investigative journalism, partnered with Chartbeat to develop a tool that would allow the public to see what members of Congress are talking about in real-time. With vast quantities of public congressional records available, the challenge was making this information easy to search, understand, and explore.

The vision was to create a tool that helped citizens stay informed on the key issues their representatives were discussing, with a focus on clarity, transparency, and usability. By allowing users to search for specific terms and see which politicians were discussing them, the tool bridged the gap between political activity and public engagement.

Design Approach

My design approach focused on simplifying complex data for a broad audience. We needed to ensure the dashboard could handle large amounts of information but still offer a streamlined, intuitive user experience.
To address this, I:

• Developed clear visual representations of search results, showing which members of Congress were discussing specific terms and in what context.

• Designed record views that allowed users to dig deeper into individual discussions and understand the surrounding context.

• Worked closely with developers to ensure the interface was responsive, fast, and capable of handling real-time data from congressional records.

Core Design Principles

• Simplicity: The dashboard needed to present vast amounts of political data in a way that was easy for the average user to understand.

• Transparency: We aimed to highlight the context behind what Congress members were saying, so users could see both the topic and how it was being framed.

• Engagement: The tool had to be interactive and engaging, encouraging users to explore and stay informed on key political discussions.

Iterative Development

Throughout the development process, we worked in close collaboration with both ProPublica’s investigative journalists and Chartbeat’s technical team. The iterative design process included frequent feedback loops, allowing us to refine the user experience and ensure it met the needs of both the public and the journalists using the tool.

We conducted usability testing with a variety of user groups to ensure the dashboard was easy to navigate. Based on feedback, we continuously improved the search functionality, ensuring users could quickly find relevant discussions and understand the context in which they were being mentioned.

Results

The Chartbeat + ProPublica dashboard successfully increased public access to congressional records, making it easier for citizens to track political conversations and hold their representatives accountable. The tool promoted greater civic engagement, offering a transparent view into the topics being discussed in Congress. By allowing users to search and explore specific terms, it fostered a deeper understanding of how key issues were being addressed in the political sphere, driving higher engagement with ProPublica’s content and advancing their mission of transparency in journalism.