FAQs
Let'sChoose.app is a web application you can use to crowdsource group preferences. Choose something to eat for dinner, select a weekend activity, or pick the most apt album for a road trip. Let'sChoose.app makes "deciding" easy. The process is as simple as share, compare, and reveal.
- Share a room link. Everyone who joins the room can add up to 5 choices for the group to consider.
- Choose from the submitted options and submit your survey.
- Reveal a ranked list of the provided choices. You can view and share the aggregated picks of the group or your individual rankings.
What is the difference between "pair", "rank", and "vote" mode?
In "pair" mode, each participant's survey will pit each option against one another randomly, with each choice-combo presented twice (e.g., "Pizza or Pasta" / "Pasta or Pizza"). This means that the survey in "pair" mode requires several responses from each participant and can take up to two minutes to complete. Each "picked" choice receives 1 thumbs-up. This means that each choice will receive multiple points from each participant. Therefore pair mode will provide the most thorough comparison of choices.
In "rank" mode, each participant's survey will require all provided options to be ordered from most-preferred to least-preferred. Once submitted, the highest-preferred item receives points according to the following equation: points = options + 1 - preference rank (e.g., if there are 4 options and "pizza" is ranked first / most-preferred, then it will receive 4 points). Therefore rank mode is quicker and less thorough than "pair" mode.
In "vote" mode, each participant's survey will require a single selection from the provided options. The "picked" choice receives 1 thumbs-up. Therefore vote mode is the quickest and most familiar mode for most groups, however it is more prone to ties. Further, vote mode does not provide participants with a way to weight their preferences, which may not reveal common preferences beyond each person's favourite choice.
What is the rationale for pitting choices against one-another in "pair" mode?
Traditional polls provide participants with a single vote to represent their choice. Therefore traditional polls are only good at aggregating the top choices of a group. Because tranditional polls only provide a single choice, traditional polls cannot quantify how much a given person prefers each particular choice.
Different polling procedures are needed to better estimate a given person's preferences. This is important because preferences are about the relationship of choices, not just what is your top choice. For example, pizza can be someone's favourite choice but will it always be chosen when pitted against every other option? Further, what if no one selects pasta in a traditional poll, but it is consistently the second-best choice amongst the whole group?
For these reasons, Let'sChoose.app defaults to "pair" mode to compares each choice against one another. It is the game of, "Would you rather?" over and over, with each choice given 1 point each time it is selected. Each choice combination is presented together twice during the survey (e.g., "Pizza or Pasta" / "Pasta or Pizza") to help reduce the influence of the presentation order on the survey participant's choices. At the end of the survey, each participant's choices can be used to rank their preference of the choices from most-preferred to least-preferred, providing a rough profile of that particular person's preferences. In aggregate, this can help reveal which choice is most-liked within a group by simply merging all participant responses into one "group" list.