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Side-by-Side Question

The Side-by-Side comparison test is perfect when you have many logos, icons, banners, short names, etc. to compare. The system breaks your items into balanced pairs and presents two at a time to respondents, asking them to choose one. A smart adaptive algorithm shows the minimum number of pairs to each respondent in order to arrive at a clear conclusion of their preferences.

Want to learn more about our question types? Enroll in our Question Types Overview course in the Lighthouse Academy!

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Building a Side-by-Side Question

  1. In the Survey Editor, click the Side-by-Side icon in the question menu, or drag the icon into place.
  2. Type or paste your question into the Question field.
  3. Type up to 12 entities in the Alternative to Compare fields and click the + icon to add additional options.
  4. Hover over a number and click the X to delete an option.
  5. Click the Full screen checkbox to force respondents to view text or images as full-screen.

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⚠️ Note: Because this question type uses an adaptive algorithm, Randomize is always enabled.

Analyzing a Side-by-Side Question

On the Results page, Side-by-Side responses are shown in a stacked bar chart.

  1. Click the first dropdown to alternatively view the chart as an Area map or as a Score Average.
  2. When Stacked or Area are selected, click the second dropdown to view Entities (popularity ranking on the x-axis, color-coded percentages for each entity on the y-axis) or Positions (entities on the x-axis, place rankings as color-coded percentages on the y-axis).
  3. Click an Entity header to show more details and statistics for a particular response.
  4. Hover over the chart to see any statistically significant differences, or click the chart icon in the upper right corner of an Entity's detail view to visualize data differently.

⚠️ Note: When Score Average is selected, each answer option's average rank is displayed. Rank values are reverse-scored: for example, if four items were ranked, first would have a score value of 4, second would be 3, third would be 2, and fourth would be 1. A higher Score Average indicates a higher average rank.

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Take a test drive on real-world results for this question type! Explore a live demo report.

Learn more about Interpreting Score Averages.