6 new question types to try out on your community

One of the core pillars of our new platform is its flexibility. We’ve adapted our question types to ensure you get the best out of your consultation and encourage a wide scope of opinions from amongst the community (our favourite is number 6).  

Today we’re going to walk you through the 6 new question types which are now available to you on our new platform. We’ll show you how they can improve your consultation by giving you more flexibility over your questions and answers. There are several more question types in the pipeline but don't worry, we’ll update you on these as they become live over the coming months.

Check out the new platform in action on a live project here. 

Short text & Long text 

Depending on what you’re asking, sometimes a short answer is all that’s needed, but at times a longer answer may be required. For example, if you were asking a member of the community what area they were commenting on this would only require a short answer “Parker Road” or “Cycleway”. But if you wanted to ask about ideas for changes in the area, you may want to leave it as an open-ended question to encourage ideas that you may not have considered. 

Sentiment & Rating 

We have replaced our sliding scale with ratings from 1-5. You can adjust the scale so it can read 1-2, 1-3 or so on as you wish. The numbers along the rating scale change from a deep green to a deep red representing the strength of rating across the scale. 

Similarly, the sentiment rating employs the same colour system. We’ve updated the look of the smilies, and they are now labelled e.g. ‘unhappy’ ‘satisfied’ ‘happy’, which has increased the questions accessibility.

Interested in finding out more? 

Priority lists 

Questions that enable the user to order priorities really help to give a picture of what’s most important for the area. Our new priority list has a more accessible interface which includes icons alongside the label,  broadening the imagination for future possibilities for change in an area. 

A feature being added to this in the coming weeks is the ability to remove certain options if they don’t apply to the user or the context in question. This will reduce lists being created with options at the end which are simply irrelevant, rather than important elements to be considered when analysing the responses. 

Multiple choice text polls 

Due to the interconnected nature of the built environment, it remains extremely important for respondents to be able to give more than one answer to a question about where they live, work or play. This question type allows respondents to select more than one answer, benefiting you with more data and them with more options. 

This question type will seem familiar, as it resembles one of the key question types in the old platform. What’s changed? Simple but effective, we’ve adapted the layout so the options are easier to read and encourage more engagement. 

Single choice text polls 

It may be that you have 6 changes that are possible to improve the area, but you want to get a good understanding of what would be most important for people. A text poll list enables you to provide the community with several options to choose one option from, so they’ll naturally prioritise what appeals to them the most. By adding ‘other’ to the list, you’ll quickly realise if you’re barking up the wrong tree with the proposed changes. 

Image polls 

Saving the best ‘till last, we’re really excited about the addition of Image Polls to the new platform. Sometimes it's hard to imagine what change is possible, especially if you’ve lived in an area for many years and seen very little progress. By providing respondents with image options to visualise what you’re proposing, it will encourage a more enthusiastic response from the community. It’s a great way to get more honest answers and inspire the community to imagine what change could really look like. 

Interested in trying out these new question types? 

What's next? 

Over the coming weeks and months we'll be updating you on our new platform. Next we'll be exploring our new editor mode, what's new, and what this means for your online engagement. Look out for our bi-weekly product education emails, and sign up to our newsletter to make sure you're up to date.