What it is

Dot voting is basically voting by giving a certain number of points (usually 3 or 5), that people can place to vote.

I find that this technique works much better and quicker than more complex sorting of ideas with complex tables.

To make it extra fun here two suggestions:

• Let people cheat: people can put all their votes on one idea, or split them as they wish.

• Let people use a spiritual vote: in cultures where spirituality is recognized, let people signal that something comes from a spiritual inspiration by circling their spiritual votes (obviously people get unlimited spiritual votes, and it's the explanation of the inspiration that usually really helps)

Resources to go further

• Tool: Feedback Frames make it possible to keep the on-site dot voting anonymous

• Tool: You can use the voting features in Miro to have a similar anonymous process but done digitally

• Guide: A more in-depth explanation of dot voting written by the team at Nielsen Norman Group