The consensus question is a crowd-sourced tool built to help communities understand where people stand on certain issues. By allowing participants to choose how much they agree or disagree with a series of statements, agencies can identify common ground and begin prioritizing important projects.
Once you've logged in to PublicInput.com, open your project. You'll land on the Project's Page & Survey tab:
Scroll down to the Project Questions and Dynamic Content section, then click the Add Question button:
In the modal that appears, choose the Consensus question type under under Quantitative questions:
On the next modal, you will enter the question prompt. This will often be something like "Evaluate these statements," or something similar. Once you'ved added your prompt, click the Continue button. Don't worry if you're not sure on phrasing here – you can edit this prompt any time (see below).
On the next modal, you will be able to choose your settings for the consensus question:
Statement prompt is the prompt entered in the previous step. This can be modified at any time here.
The Add Explainer Text button allows you to add additional info to display to the participant.
Click the Add new statement button to add statements for users to evaluate. You can add as many as you like. Once you have more than one statement, you may use the hamburger menu icon at the far right to reorder them as desired, or delete them with the cog icon next to it.
This dropdown provides for the option to allow users to enter their own statements for consensus:
Accept statements at any point: this enforces no limitations on when a user can add a statement.
Accept after reviewing X# of statements: this requires the user to browse through a set number of statements before they are able to add their own. This can help reduce redundancy in statements because users will be more likely to have seen a statement that aligns with their own, if it already exists.
Don't accept user-submitted statements: this restricts the adding of statements to the admin.
The Disable swipe gestures on mobile toggle ensures that only button actions will activate a response, reducing the risk that a user's swipe on a mobile device will be seen as an interaction with the question.
The Introductory content card can be optionally shown to users for more context on the consensus question (see below).
This toggle displays the Introductory content (above) and the "More info" card (below).
The "More info" card, similar to the Introductory content card, is an optional card to display to users with additional content or information.
Click the Save changes button to apply the settings chosen above.
Now you can click the View Live Site button to see this question on your online survey,
or open your project in your mobile browser to get the full "Consensus mode" effect!
Participants can swipe left (❌ DISAGREE) or right (👍 AGREE) with the statements that your organization or other members of the public have proposed as they appear.
See also: