Problems and Purpose

Online surveys tools are only designed to collect basic structured information like people's name, email address, and basic rating scales. For meaningful participation, more advanced methods of structured participation are required that can model how people feel and think about a topic at scale. OpinionX offers a range of comparative ranking methods (such as pairwise comparison, maxdiff analysis, ranked choice voting, credit allocation, and conjoint analysis) to measure people's preferences about any topic. It includes segmentation and clustering functionality to see how subgroups voted differently, as well as crowdsourcing features so that you can collect new voting options from participants mid-survey.

Origins and Development

OpinionX was established in 2020 and initially launched as a tool to help universities in Ireland to conduct large-scale consultations of students and staff experiences of remote learning during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It later found success as a user research tool for product management teams looking to get customers to rank problem statements as part of product strategy and roadmap planning. Tens of thousands of organizations today use OpinionX, including national, regional, and city governments, academics, healthcare providers, and more, as a way to collect structured data about citizen needs at scale.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

At the time of writing, OpinionX does not provide built-in functionality for participant recruitment, however, it does have partnerships with panel providers to enable easy recruitment and selection.

How it Works: Process, Interaction, and Decision-Making

OpinionX has a free self-service survey builder -- you can create a free account and set your own project up in a couple minutes. Alongside its range of comparative ranking and voting methods, you'll find all the usual survey methods like multiple choice, email collection, open-text response, and rating scales. There are a range of different distribution methods to pick from (embed, shareable link, unique links, email import, external recruitment). Results are calculated automatically and analysis features (crosstab, segmentation, clustering) prepopulated without any configuration required.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

Comparative ranking surveys help turn qualitative opinions into quantitative results that meaningfully represent people's preferences and priorities. Whether trying to rank a total population's preferences or compare how subgroups of people think differently about an issue, OpinionX's analysis features automate the analysis process to help you get the most important insights without requiring technical expertise.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

Crosstab, segmentation, and clustering analyses that can be used to analyze ranked data are invaluable methods of understanding the opinion of a populace at scale, helping researchers to understand what divides and unites disparate segments of the population so that they can create policy/strategy that targets key stakeholders or facilitates broad consensus amongst citizens.

See Also

• OpinionX Examples -- embedded interactive examples of the various ranking and voting methods available on OpinionX, along with interactive results examples too.
• OpinionX Demos -- videos showing how OpinionX and its features work.

References

• Problem Stack Ranking -- a guide to quantifying people's top needs, pains, or desires.
• What Is Pairwise Comparison? -- a guide explaining what pairwise voting is, how it works, examples of it in action, and why is it uniquely suited to large-scale online public consultation projects.
• What Is MaxDiff Analysis? -- similar to pairwise comparison but with higher information collection density, maxdiff is a popular market research tool that is underutilized in civic participation.
• What is Conjoint Analysis? -- a popular research method for multi-variable ranking, conjoint is well suited for more advanced trade-off analysis where multiple variables are interconnected.

External Links

Examples of OpinionX used and cited as a research method in academic research:

• Defining Treatment Response for Clinical Trials of Pediatric Acute Asthma -- link
• Building Digital Teaching and Learning Capabilities with DigitalEd.ie in Response to a Global Pandemic -- link
• Prioritizing research needs and opportunities at the intersection of implementation science and engagement science -- link
• Finnish University Students' Sociocultural Experiences and Views of Quantum Physics -- link
• Application of strategic environmental assessment for mass transit system: Case study of Uttaradit Province, Thailand -- link
• Supporting Student Engagement and Partnership in Higher Education Decision-Making during the Pandemic: A reflection from the National Student Engagement Programme (NStEP) -- link
• The establishment of a national student assembly in the National Forum: Student partnership in action -- link
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• 'Thinking Outside the Box': Extending Our Analysis of Surplus Food Movement -- link
• More Than Food: Surplus Food Distribution During the Covid-19 Pandemic -- link

Notes

OpinionX offers a free version and paid plans, which unlock premium customizations and advanced research methods. The free version allows for unlimited surveys, participants, questions, ranking options, and teammates. The functionality, research methods, and linked academic studies that utilized OpinionX which have been mentioned throughout this overview of the platform include a range of both free and premium functionality. A comprehensive breakdown of the pricing plans of OpinionX can be found here.