The Ranking Poll allows your audience to sort a list of options based on preference, importance, or priority. Unlike a standard multiple-choice poll that captures a single top choice, Ranking Polls provide a deeper understanding of audience sentiment by revealing the relative value of every option provided.
It’s a drag-and-drop or tap-to-sort interface. Here’s how it works:
- For the Attendee: They see a list of options. They can either drag them into order or tap them in the order of their preference (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.).
- For the Projector Panel: Instead of simple bars showing percentages, the results usually display a Weighted Average Score. This means an option ranked #1 by most people will rise to the top of the chart, providing a clear "winner" based on collective priority.
Use cases
Use this feature to:
- Drive Consensus: Quickly identify common ground in team meetings or workshops.
- Inform Decisions: Let stakeholders weigh in on project priorities or product features.
- Engage Audiences: Turn passive listeners into active participants by giving them a direct say in the session's direction.
The results of a Ranking Poll on the Projector Panel
About creating a Ranking Poll
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For an Event Session: Choose Poll: Multiple choice as the Session type. When you add the question, select Ranking Poll from the Type drop-down list.
The drop-down list for selecting the type of Multiple choice Poll
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For a Presentation Interactivity: You can select Ranking Poll directly.
The Add interactivity to presentation screen showing a card for each Interactivity, including the types of Multiple choice polls
You enter a Question for the audience and at least two Answer options.
The following image shows the fields for setting up a Ranking Poll Session in an Event Pigeonhole.
The following image shows the fields for setting up a Ranking Poll Interactivity in a Presentation Pigeonhole.
Chart types
The responses display as a chart on the Projector Panel. By default, they’re shown as a Vertical bar chart. Alternatively, you can choose a Horizontal bar chart. You can only choose one chart type for each question.
Settings
In a Ranking poll, you can configure the following settings:
- Anonymous responses: When disabled (default), participants are asked to create a profile when submitting answers. The speaker or presenter can identify participants who submitted answers. When enabled, participants are not identified in the answers they post in the Audience Web App, Panels, and Insights.
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Comments: Allows participants to provide extra context, explanations, or suggestions alongside their answer. Other participants or the presenter can view and, depending on settings, like or reply to comments. This functionality encourages discussion and richer insights, rather than just single-line answers. Comments do not appear on the Projector Panel by default, but can be accessed by clicking in.
- Comment filtering: Enables an admin to manage audience comments by choosing to Allow, Edit, or Dismiss them. Only allowed comments are visible to your audience. You can enable or disable this comment filtering feature at any time, even while the Interactivity is live.
- Attendees see the live results on the Audience Web App after voting: Shows live results in the Audience Web App.
- Attendees can change their vote: Enables participants to edit their votes after submitting them.
- Attendees can view Poll even after it has ended: When enabled, attendees can continue to view the Poll beyond the end time, but will not be able to submit new answers. This setting is only available for Event Pigeonholes.
- Reactions: Allows participants to use emojis to react to moments in your live events, live streams, and on-demand videos. This option displays under More settings. It is available for plans with Reactions enabled.
When you create a Ranking poll within an Event Session, you can also set the Votes per user, or the number of times an attendee can vote on the question. The default is 1.
The following image shows the settings for a Ranking Poll Session in an Event Pigeonhole.
The following image shows the settings for a Ranking Poll Interactivity in a Presentation Pigeonhole.
Advanced Customisations
For Event Pigeonholes on paid plans
Consider editing the following options in the Advanced Customisations section. These options are available for Event sessions.
- Pre-poll message: A message shown to attendees before the start of the Poll. Use this space to share how responses will be used, as well as the estimated time to complete the Poll. This field is required and pre-filled with basic text by default. Limit: 500 characters. Line breaks are retained. Basic text formatting is supported through Markdown (see Markdown support).
- Post-poll message: This message is shown to attendees upon completion of the Poll. Use this space to show a thank you message for completing the Poll. This field is required and pre-filled with basic text by default. Limit: 500 characters. Line breaks are retained. Basic text formatting is supported through Markdown (see Markdown support).
The Advanced Customisation area of the settings for the Event Session. The Pre- and Post-poll messages are highlighted
The Participant experience
Participants access the Ranking poll via the Audience Web App, which uses a split-screen interface:
- Top Half: Displays the poll question and provides a prompt to begin ranking.
- Bottom Half: Lists the available options.
Participants tap their choices in order of priority. As items are selected, they move to the top half and are automatically assigned a rank number on the left.
A Ranking poll in progress in the Audience Web App. The top half of the screen shows two options that are selected and ranked. Three more options display on the bottom half of the screen
Note: Participants can only modify their order if you enable the Attendees can change their vote setting during your poll setup.