The Impression Dial is a Specialty Question that allows respondents to indicate their sentiments, feelings, or perceptions on a second-by-second basis as they view video content.

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

Building an Impression Dial Question

1. Click the Add new question button displayed after the last question and select the Impression Dial question type from the menu.
2. Click Upload to select a video from your hard drive, or click the Reuse Saved Video dropdown to select from previously uploaded videos on your account.
3. Type or paste your question into the Question field.
4. Type pairs of terms into the Left Label and Right Label fields, or click the Library of Common Scales dropdown to select a preset scale.
5. Click the left or right sides of the color bar to adjust the color of your scale, by choosing from the color selector or typing a hex code.
6. Click the Training dropdown to set training to Always on (shown every time an Impression Dial question is used), or Always off (training never shown).

💡 Tip: If you have a lot of context to provide, add an Instruction Text question before the Impression Dial question. If you'd like respondents to assess the video on multiple scales, add an additional Impression Dial question, reuse the video, and build an additional scale.

Respondent View

In the survey, respondents see a training question (if programmed) and are then directed to your uploaded video. As they watch, they move the joystick back and forth along the scale, indicating their impressions of the video, until it has finished playing.

Analyzing Impression Dial Results

On the Results page, you'll see the video with a visualization of the results below it.

1. Move your mouse along the line on any view to see the point in the video that elicited these reactions.
2. Click the Viewmode dropdown to visualize data as a Timeslice or a Windmap with a scale from -100 (the left end of the dial) to +100 (the right end):
   • Timeslice — horizontal lines along the indicator represent the distribution of respondents' reactions along the scale. The wider the line, the more respondents indicated that position.
   • Windmap — small moving arrows and color saturation illustrate the strength and direction that respondents moved the dial at each point. Strong wind indicates a large number of respondents in this vicinity with similar direction; weak or non-existing wind means there were no respondents in the area, or their directions canceled out.
3. Click the Mean line view mode dropdown to see the mean line of data as Precise, Smooth, or Segmented:
   • Precise — shows the average slider position on a small slice of time.
   • Smooth — shows an average slider position, smoothed to hide inconsequential movement.
   • Segmented — shows an average slider position over an automatically calculated segment of time. Segments are defined by a change detection algorithm, where breaks indicate a change in respondents' behavior.