Dot voting online, without the dots
Dot voting — everyone sticks dots on the notes they care about — is the fastest way for a group to decide what to talk about. Online, it does not need dots at all.
Opens a live board in one click. No sign-up: share the link and your team joins.
What dot voting is for
After a brainstorm the wall is full and the time is short. A vote turns forty notes into the three the group will actually discuss, in a minute, without anyone having to argue for their own. It is a way to set priorities, not to make the final decision.
How dwell voting works
A facilitator starts it from the board's Facilitate menu with Start dwell voting. From then on, resting on a sticky note for 2 seconds casts your vote for it; a ring fills on the corner of the note while you wait. Clicking or tapping a note votes at once, which is how it works on a phone or a touchscreen.
- One vote each, and it moves. Rest on another note and your vote goes there. It suits "what should we discuss first", where changing your mind is part of the process.
- Counts, not names. Each note shows how many votes it has, and the note or notes in the lead are outlined. The dock shows how many people have voted so far.
- Everyone can vote, including guests with a view-only link.
- It ends cleanly. When the facilitator stops voting, the counts disappear from the board and nothing is saved in the file.
Running a fair vote
- Group first. Merge duplicates before voting, or two notes saying the same thing split their votes.
- Say what the vote means. "Which of these should we spend the next twenty minutes on?" gets a better answer than "which is most important?".
- Timebox it. Two minutes on the shared timer is usually enough; stop when the dock shows everyone has voted.
- Talk about the result. A close second is worth a sentence. A note nobody voted for is not necessarily wrong.