Dot-Voting Activities

Using dots as an effective voting tool to rank topics and narrow down ideas with the highest interest by the group.

PURPOSE:

Dot voting is used to democratically prioritize items or make decisions in a group setting. It is an easy, functional, straightforward way to narrow down alternatives and converge to a set of concepts or ideas.

ACTIVITY PHASE:

Involvement should span throughout the whole process, including preparations and organization during the voting process.

Vision and goals
Site exploration
Program development
Co-design
Design evaluation
Implementation
Feedback & Synthesize

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Paper with voting options printed
Whiteboard for display
Sticky notes, flip charts
Scotch tape, or push pins

PREFERRED FORMAT:

Dot-voting works best at workshops, focus groups, social media, open houses.

SUGGESTIONS:

Do prepare options that participants can distinguish the differences.
Do clarify voting constraints and explain rules before voting.
Do give effective facilitation and maintain the order during voting.
Do monitor the whole process to ensure equal voting.
Do summarize the voting results and collect feedback from participants.

Overview

Dot voting, also called"dot democracy", is a one-question multiple-choice survey done with stickers. Each team member is given the same number of tokens (“dots”) and instructed to place the stickers near the list of items they wish to select or prioritize. By placing colored dots, participants individually vote on the importance of design ideas, features, usability findings, and anything else that requires prioritization. Options with the most dots “win”. As long as you need to focus on a subset of alternatives within a large set, or must make quick group decisions in a short amount of time, dot-voting activity can be a good choice!

Organization and Process

To make the voting results more reliable, the order of activities is suggested as below.

1. Gather Materials.

Materials depend on what is voted on, and what you use to vote. Most commonly, options are represented on sticky notes (usually hung on a wall or whiteboard) or on a large piece of paper. For voting, dot stickers are most commonly used due to their flexibility. Here is a simple mathematic formula to tell you how many dots you need to prepare for each participant:

The formula is: N=[(T/2)xT]/P

N=number of dots needed for each person; T=number of issues or topics; P=number of participants

2. Specify voting constraints.

Before the vote, remind individuals of the purpose and value of the voting exercise. Why are they voting and how will the outcome be used?——For the development of design elements with the style that people prefer in the park. Moreover, tell participants how many votes they will have.

3. Vote.

Ask the participants to vote by placing their dots. Participants should apply dots under or beside the items they prioritize. To make sure the voting is not influenced by others. It is suggested that participants place their votes quietly. Conversations should not resume until all participants have placed their dot or mark. No lobbying during the voting process.

4. Calculate outcome.

Once all individuals have voted, organizers can converge and discuss the outcome. When dots are used, the content with the most concentrated votes represented people's favorite options of the designing elements. After that, participants can discuss why they have voted for particular options and assess the next steps to develop ideas for design.

5. Potentially narrow and revote.

If there is a tie among top options or further prioritization is needed, the group can vote again to establish a clear winner. Reissue the same number of votes to each participant, but only allow votes on the top options that emerged from the previous vote.

Tips to Motivate Participants:

If a participant seems to have trouble voting their dots, the following questions can help them make a sensible decision. Examples of these questions could include:
- - - Which style of gateway do you prefer as the threshold?
    - Which stage and pavilion you would like to see in the future park?
    - What kind of playground would you like your kids to play in?
    - What is your favorite time of year to go to the park? What is the weather like during that time of year?
Assign meaning to colors carefully. Traditional dot voting uses same-colored dots. Other colors can also be introduced to add nuance to the voting activity. For example, green dots could represent " strongly like", while yellow dots could represent "like".
Have participants also draw shapes on the dot stickers to coordinate with the color, which ensures all members can read the outcome of the voting, even if they are colorblind. For example, draw squares on red dots, triangles on yellow.

Advantages:

Choose amongst several potential research efforts
Assess users' insights to further explorations
Narrow down design ideas into prioritized possibilities.
Ranking topics in a discussion or workshop

Limitations:

Persuaded voting: someone expresses his/her opinions loud, with the assumption that others will follow suit. (HIPPO effect)
Group voting: individuals think “I’ll just vote here since everyone else did.”
Split voting: deficient options may cause the related ideas to lose unfairly.
Limit options constrain the creativity and diversity of ideas

(Left) Example shows the weakness of vote-splitting in dot-voting activity. (Illustrated by the author)

Advanced Forms:

Apply various types of stickers(color, shape, etc) to represent different criteria used in voting.
Use different color dots for different types of participants e.g. blue for management and red for staff.
Use additional marks (sticky notes) to explain why you choose, which can help summarize the voting result.
Vote with negative dots (resistance votes) to find the highest group acceptance. Options with the least dots at the end of voting "win".

(Left) Create different votings of criteria by way of shape and color; (Middle & Right) Additional marks help to illustrate the reasons for choices. (Edited by the author)

(Top) Community members from Bowman actively participated in the dot-voting activity.

(Bottom) Pages from the inspiration dotting board activity that allowed residents to vote on their favorite images by placing a dot sticker.

Case Story

In Fall 2021, a group of students from LAND 7050S landscape design studio at the University of Georgia utilized the dot-voting method in the Project of Bowman (SC) Inner City Park Restoration. This activity was regarded as the engagement phases of "Design Development" and "Co-Design". To hear from clients about their dreams for the park, we engaged community members using the dot board activity during an informal cookout in early September. Specific items with different design styles were prepared and printed ahead of time.

Based on the site visit and feedback from the community, we selected eight design elements that were in urgent need to be restored at Bowman Park, which included: main entry, playground, central focal point, landscaping, event stage, covered pavilion, sports area, and seating. After that, we did lots of researches and generalized four main styles as options for each item. In the activity, residents voted on their favorite images by placing a dot sticker of any color under the design style they liked. In the end, we calculated the dots of each category and analyzed what were the community's favorite kinds of design items.

Do-voting was such a useful method, allowing community members to envision the best design possible for Bowman's community park while encouraging us to think more in-depth about the details in the future design. Moreover, it was even like an ice-breaking game, helping us to develop a close relationship with our clients during our first site visit. However, it could be better if more participants left sticky notes to explain why they liked or disliked the style of design elements.

Lessons Learned

Provide typical design representatives to choose from.
Ask questions about client priorities for the design.
Use different color dots to signify different values.

Compared to the traditional boring survey or poll, participants can get more fun with stickers in dot-voting. For our project, this activity achieved a win-win outcome. Not only did it engage community members in an effective way, but it helped our design team to know what style of design elements that most of the people preferred in the community park. Generally, dot voting gave a chance for all participants to vote on what they considered the most important to design, which was a simple method to prioritize items for future design.

Sources

"How to perfect the facilitation tool, "sticky dot voting". MSU Extension. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
"Making Community Design Work by Umut Toker “Chapter 6: Methods and Instruments for Community Design Activities”
"Group Brainstorming: Dot Voting with a Difference | Innovation Management". www.innovationmanagement.se. 15 June 2004. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
"Dot voting tips" John Amrhein, Michigan State University Extension - January 3, 2019https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/dot-voting-tips

[Witten by Guangzhao Zhang]

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