Dot voting
Dot voting, also known as dotmocracy, allows individual participants to place sticky dots onto a range of options in order to vote on, or prioritise, ideas, comments or actions.
Resources needed
- Time to do: can be done within a couple of minutes, depending on the number and complexity of the options
- Staff: at least one facilitator to explain the rules and keep an eye on the voting process to ensure it is fair
- Cost: £
- Equipment: stickers or pens, paper or sticky notes to display the options, clear wall or table space
Suitable for
- small groups
- large groups
- face-to-face
How to do it
- Write up the options under consideration and display them in an accessible way, such as by using sticky notes on a wall or on flipcharts.
- Give each participant a set number of stickers and ask them to stick them next to their preferred option(s).
- The technique can be adapted in many ways, including using different coloured stickers to indicate different values (e.g. positive/negative) or to identify different types of participants. Participants can also rank their votes by using stickers with “1”, “2”, “3” and so on written on them in order to calculate a weighted vote.
- If resources are limited, participants could use pens to tick or otherwise mark their preferred option – although it is harder to keep track of how many times each individual has voted using this method.
Advantages
- Easy to set up and use
- Engaging for participants
- Low cost
- Can be used with other tools, for example to vote on the most popular ideas generated in a Focus Group, or actions identified in an After Action Review
- Provides a quantifiable and visible result
Challenges
- Can suffer from the bandwagon effect, with people placing their dots where the majority of people have already voted.
- There can be choice overload if there are too many options; similar options should be grouped together beforehand if possible.
- No scope for explaining why a particular option has been chosen