Creating a Question

Open the application

Click on the application. You should see two options: Create new question and Participate in a question.

Compose your Question

Click on “Create new question.” Compose a short question (140 characters or less) in the text box and click “next.”

Create your Options

You should see a form with two small text boxes. After you fill the second box, a third one will appear. Continue adding options as you need them, up to eight total. When you’re satisfied with your options, click “next.”

Set the Decision Conditions

You will be prompted to choose the conditions that will cause the question to end. You’ll have three settings to adjust. You can use them in any combination or not at all.

1. Hard deadline. You will choose a date and time.
2. Participation minimum. Whatever your other settings, if this is set and not met, no decision will be generated, and the question will be “dead” and a new one will have to be created. Users will see a message to this effect: “
3. Moving time limit and participation threshold. To encourage engagement in larger groups, this is a short time limit that begins to run after the participation minimum is hit, and is restarted after each subsequent vote is submitted. If the vote drags to the point where no vote is submitted before this moving time limit expires, the vote closes.

Participating in a Question

Open the application

Click on the application. You should see two options: Create new question and Participate in a question. Click “Participate in a question.”

Choose a question to participate in

Because the questions are confined to the application instance (i.e., the window you have open), you will see the list of available questions. Choose one.

Examine the options

Drag the options you’d be okay with to your choices field. From there, organize them by preference, top to bottom, with the top being your preferred option, and the last being your least favorite option that’s still acceptable to you.

Review your choices and submit

Once you submit your vote, there’s no going back. When you’ve submitted your vote, you will see a screen confirming your vote has been accepted, and the option to return to the question list.

Deadline

Approaching the Deadline

From the time the deadline is set, be it through a hard deadline or a roving deadline as explained above, it will be visible to all participants in the bottom of the UI. For example, no matter what stage they are at in the decision-making process, there will be a little reminder on the bottom that says “Decision Due: xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xx AM/PM”.

Final Decision

When the deadline has passed, the program will generate the highest-ranked option as the decision. This decision will be visible to all participants in that question. Once a decision is reached, that question will appear below the active questions. Once a question has been decided on, there is no way to edit the decision.