Archibald ANZ People's Choice 2026
From congestion to participation
The ANZ People’s Choice Award is one of the most popular parts of the Archibald Prize, but getting thousands of visitors to cast a vote presents a unique service design challenge. For the 2026 exhibition, MASS worked with the Art Gallery of NSW to rethink the voting experience, with a focus on reducing congestion, improving accessibility and making it easier for more people to participate, without compromising the integrity of the vote.
The full story
The challenge extended well beyond the voting interface itself. In the final room of the exhibition, visitors were encouraged to cast their vote using iPads mounted throughout the space. But with hundreds of people moving through the gallery, these devices could create congestion and queues. Poor mobile reception within parts of the gallery also made using a personal device difficult, creating another barrier to participation.
Rather than simply redesigning the voting interface, we looked at the complete journey. How do visitors discover that they can vote? Where do they make their decision? When and where are they most likely to vote? And how can they use their own device without creating opportunities for duplicate or fraudulent votes? The resulting service design approach explored a more flexible model, allowing visitors to vote on their own devices where reception allowed, or shortly after leaving the exhibition, while maintaining the controls required to ensure each person could vote only once.
The project culminated in a clear hypothesis and prototype that could be trialled during the exhibition. The results were encouraging: the new approach performed better than expected, helping reduce pressure around the gallery's voting infrastructure while making participation easier. Most importantly, the trial resulted in more votes being cast than ever before, demonstrating that improving the service around voting can have a significant impact on participation.
What we did
— Stakeholder workshops
— Service experience design
— Journey mapping
— Pain point identification
— Prototype development and testing
— User experience
— User interface design
MASS is located on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We acknowledge their sovereignty and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.