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Slido is gradually rolling out a new user interface. If the below steps and visuals match what you are seeing within your account, then you are using the new interface and this article is for you. If not, please see this version.

 

The ranking poll is ideal if you wish for your participants to rank options in the order of importance or preference – so you can learn what resonates with your audience the most.
 

Watch a video guide now or continue below for a step-by-step tutorial:

 

In this article:

 

 

Create your ranking poll

 

In your slido, go to My interactions and + Add new. From there, select Ranking poll. Then just ask a question, add the options, and you’re all set. Click the Play button to activate the poll whenever you’re ready.

 

Create a ranking poll

 

No need to worry about saving your progress. Your polls are saved automatically.

 

 

Ranking poll options

 

You can customize your ranking poll in a few different ways. Select the Poll options in the upper right corner to see the below settings.

  • Restricted ranking: Set a required number of options that participants must select before submitting their response
     
  • Randomize options: Randomly reorder the options for each participant
     
  • Poll description: Add a description for added context
     
  • Poll results: Choose whether your live poll results will be visible or hidden for participants
     
  • Add image: Add an image to be displayed alongside your poll question

 

 

Test your poll and see how it works for participants

 

To see how the poll works for your participants:

  1. Activate your poll by clicking the green Start interaction or Play button 
  2. Select the View as participant option near the bottom right corner
  3. Submit an answer as a participant and click Exit participant mode when finished
     
Test the ranking poll participant experience

 

Notice that participants select their options and can then drag/drop them in their preferred order.

 

 

Run your ranking poll

 

When you’re ready to run your poll for your participants, simply activate the poll and open Present mode. You can share your screen while using Present mode and display your poll results live for all to see.

 

See below what a ranking poll looks like in Present mode.

 

Ranking poll in Present mode

 

 

How we calculate the scores

 

With the ranking poll, participants essentially give points to each option. The higher someone ranks an option, the more points it receives. Using an example of participants needing to rank 3 options, the option ranked first receives 3 points, the second gets 2 points and the third gets 1 point.

 

Once voting is over, we count up these points for each option and divide it by the number of people who participated in the ranking poll. This gives us an average score for each option and the option with the highest score is the most preferred one.

 

Example:

  • There are 3 people (A, B, C) participating in a poll that consists of three options (X, Y, Z)
  • Person A submits the options in the following order: X, Y, Z
  • Person B submits the options in the following order: Y, X, Z
  • Person C submits the options in the following order: Y, X, Z
  • Option X receives 7 points (3 + 2 + 2); Option Y receives 8 points (2 + 3 + 3); Option Z receives 3 points (1 + 1 + 1)
  • Average for Option X is 2.3 (7 divided by 3); Average for Option Y is 2.7 (8 divided by 3); Average for Option Z is 1 (3 divided by 3)
  • The final order of Options is the following: Y (2.7); X (2.3); Z (1)

In case a participant does not rank all the options, the one they did not pick automatically receives 0 points. 

 


 

Learn more:
 

 

I understand the standard initial option is people have to rank all before they can submit.

I can specify a number (ie Top 5) that people must rank before they can submit.

How can I just let the audience choose to rank as many items as they think are ‘important’. For example, I have a list of 20 items, I want the audience to select and rank as many of those items as they think are important. Its a bit of a nuisance for the audience to rank a long list, many of which they don't care about. Equally for me to choose a number they have to rank is not ideal

Hi @AndrewNZ,

At the moment, it isn’t possible to let the audience rank as many options as they want. Either you set a limit yourself as the admin or they have to rank all the given options. 

That said, we might add this option to the ranking poll in the future so thanks for your feedback.

Best,

Adam

Is there a limit to the number of items in a ranking poll?

Hi @mitzi62,

There isn’t really a hard limit set on the number of items in a ranking poll. That said, we recommend keeping the list short.

Sometimes less is more. :) 

Adam

Can I set scoring? For example it I want to do a top 3 out of 6 options and then want the 1st to be 6,  2nd to be 2, and 3rd to be 1, can I do that? 

Hi @Cruiser714,

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to set scoring for any of our polls. 

Sorry about that!

Let me know if there’s anything else that I can help with 😊

 

Hi! 
Is there a way to create a ranking poll where users can submit answers as well as rank them?

Thank you!

Hey @Atrium,

If you’d like participants to rank their own answers, then you could either use our ideas feature or you could run an open text poll and then copy and paste the answers into a ranking poll.

If you’d like participants to add submissions to a ranking poll, then you could add an option like “other” and then ask participants to submit their responses via an open text poll.

 

We are also discussing this use case in these threads:

Hope this helps! :)

HI - Does slido have the option for other people to upvote answers submitted in an open-text poll, then rank ordering the answers according to the answers submitted? Or can this feature be submitted? It is a very useful feature I’ve used in another polling app. Thanks

Hi @frank2000, 

Thank you for your question!

The open text poll does not allow users to upvote other's responses, but it's a great idea! Instead, you could collect answers in an open text poll and then run a ranking poll to let participants choose their favorite.  Once your participants are done, Slido will then display the highest ranking answers.

 

Another feature that could work for this purpose is by collecting ideas. This feature is especially useful for brainstorming topics. Participants are able to interact by upvoting ideas submitted. The ideas with the highest number of upvotes will display at the top.

Hope this helps!

Feature request: it would be really helpful to be able to close/stop the ranking poll (like we can stop quizzes) then showing a final image (uploaded by us, I mean). We could use it to show the right ranking with numbers (or percentages) that clearly show/explain things.

Thanks!

Hi @ACSG,

Thanks for the feature request - I’ll definitely pass it on to our Product Team!

In the meantime, there’s a workaround that you can try for your use case. You can lock voting on your poll by clicking on the little lock when hovering over your poll in admin. This will prevent your participants from changing their votes. 

Hope this helps!

Hi @Alex  thanks for your reply! Our request was a little bit different, even though locking the vote is useful for sure!

Let’s say that we want people correctly rank the 5 most populated cities in our country. After they have voted, we would like to show them not only the right ranking but also the population for each city. Something that we can’t obviously show them before. So, being able to add an image to show the ranking with numbers would be the easiest way to show the WHY of the ranking. Another option, more complicated on your side 😬 but even more effective, would be adding the possibility to show the values (numbers, percentages, or whatever the ranking is based on) directly into the Slido ranking poll, only after it’s closed.

We hope we have clarified our request 🙂

I’m curious about what happens on the user end once they submit. Will the participant be able to see their rankings after they submit? My main goal would be that each individual participant could see what they put as I talk through the next slide. 

Will they still have their own ranking visible after submitting? 

Hello @elishalawrence,

after participants submit their responses they can only see overall results of all. I can pass this feedback to our team to be aware of your use-case and the importance of being able to see own votes after voting. But at this moment it is only possible to submit the votes and then view the results. 

Hello,

In the full results of the ranking question, some users only have two of the options, others have all six. What does this mean? Did those users only rank two answers? How can this be with a drag and drop? Surely this means that the answers were already in the order that they wished to rank them? 

Hello @LPsecurity,

You are correct the results are seen in the order as participants voted. And if you see only two options it means they dragged and dropped only two out of all and they did not vote for all of the options. If you wish that your participants pick all options then you can set it when creating/editing your ranking poll. There is an option to select how many options should be ranked. 

Hey @LPsecurity ,

This means that those Participants only dragged and dropped 2 options from the list below. They can submit their response with only a few options rather than organizing all of the options into an order they would like.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

Best,

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